


Bluebird

by SallyLovette



Series: The Iceman [3]
Category: Lackadaisy (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama & Romance, F/M, Hospitals, M/M, Memory Loss, Period Typical Attitudes, Plot Twists, Sexual Abuse, Story Driven, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-06-30 03:04:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 27,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15742884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyLovette/pseuds/SallyLovette
Summary: Mordecai has sustained a severe injury at the hands of his former associates, the Savoys. Meanwhile, Calvin is missing in action after committing another murder.





	1. Starburst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it continues.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

The hospital, St. Joseph’s, is in Illinois. Mordecai spends most of his time therein asleep as he recovers. It had been tricky getting him on the train, injured as he was, but St. Louis wasn’t safe for either of them anymore. Ideally, they would have hidden somewhere much further away, but Mordecai was already in bad shape when Rocky found him, and their scope of options was rather limited as a result. But maybe that wasn’t all bad. Anyone looking for them may not think to search as close to home as this— at least, they haven’t thought of it _yet._ And why should they? They think Mordecai is dead. They shot him in the head, for Christ’s sake.

Sitting in a chair by the bed, Rocky finds his gaze fixated, not for the first time, on the wound. It’s mostly healed by now, but it left a nasty scar, like a starburst. Suffice it to say Mordecai’s already terrible vision isn’t likely to survive any more damage. With only one eye left and his glasses long since lost, he lives his life these days almost completely blind.

Rocky wonders if Mordecai would have an easier time recognizing him if he could see better. He doubts it. Half the time (when he’s awake, that is) Mordecai can’t even remember English. He doesn’t remember a lot of things. He doesn’t remember Rocky’s name most days. And if he remembers who shot him, he’s keeping it to himself, unaware that he really doesn’t have to bother. Rocky can put two and two together. Mordecai took this bullet from Marigold, for him; in other words, this is all his fault. _It was supposed to be me,_ he thinks, _not you._ But things didn’t work out the way either of them expected, in many more ways than one.

Time passes. Rocky turns twenty-four. He spends his birthday the same way he spends every day— with Mordecai, reading to him, conversing with him if he’s lucid enough, playing the violin, keeping him company. Now more than ever, Mordecai is terrible company. He doesn’t like anything. He doesn’t like music. He doesn’t like poetry. He doesn’t like pancakes. He doesn’t like holding hands. Oh, he used to, but now that he can seldom recognize Rocky, let alone remember having been in a relationship with him, those days are long gone. In point of fact, Rocky has to re-introduce himself regularly, sometimes not for a week or two, sometimes multiple times within a single visit. As the months go by Rocky starts to worry that Mordecai will be stuck here forever, and as his worries are reflected in fewer smiles and less energy, Mordecai, despite his condition, picks up that something’s wrong. He starts to get moodier and colder. On one occasion he picks up a letter Rocky had written him and proceeds to berate it, pointing out all of its obvious faults: the chicken-scratch handwriting, the unnecessary rhyming, the convoluted, inarticulate prose style, the fraility of the emotions woven into every line. “What’s the point?” he concludes. Rocky shrugs. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Where did you even get this?” 

“I wrote it.” 

Mordecai stares at the paper. Flips it over, frowning, studying it. “What is it?” he asks finally, as if he hadn’t just not only read but thoroughly annihilated the entire thing.

“A letter.” 

Mordecai is silent for a long time before he looks up. “Thank you.” He pauses. “You remind me of someone. He left a long time ago. He used to write to me, just like this.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yes. I miss him.” Mordecai folds the letter very slowly and carefully. “I made a mistake when I let him go. I should have stopped him. Now I can never tell him how I feel... about his poetry. It’s terrible. I’ve always hated it.” 

Rocky smiles. “I get the feeling he knows.” But his smile fades and he sighs when Mordecai looks at him as if noticing for the first time he’s there. 

“Who are you?”

 

*

 

It’s all so overwhelming at times. Rocky’s no stranger to life’s little misfortunes and tragedies, nor to having no control, but he can’t remember the last time it’s ever made him feel so helpless. He’s still in touch with Ivy. She told him last time they were on the phone, a few weeks back, that Lackadaisy happened (“never you mind how!”) to come into a considerable sum of money (again) but blew through it just as quickly (again) and is once again struggling to stay afloat with whatever luck and determination they have remaining. At least they’re still hanging in there. Miss M isn’t the giving up type. Rocky is relieved to hear she’s squeaking by all right. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he always says.

“She’s not mad at you, Rocky. And I’m not just saying that. She thinks your secret romance with Mr. Heller is just about the most beautiful thing in the world. Like a movie.”

“Okay. Would you just tell her I’m sorry, anyway?” He hears Ivy sigh. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell her.”

Rocky lives on the streets. He plays the violin to cover the medical bills and never strays too far from the hospital, just in case something changes. In spite of everything, he stays hopeful. When he’s not writing missives of love to Mordecai, he’s writing jovial, sugar-coated letters to Calvin, but, with no clue where to send them (no one, not even Ivy, has seen Calvin in months, not since just before he murdered Asa) they accumulate in the pockets and lining of his shabby winter coat.


	2. Forgotten

Ivy hangs up the phone. “Rocky says he’s sorry,” she tells Mitzi. Mitzi smiles a little. 

“That silly thing. How’s Mordecai?”

“No improvement.” Ivy starts to inch toward the door. “And Viktor said to keep him updated, so...” 

“Honey, you can’t go out now. We have customers.” 

“It’ll be really quick.” 

“What about that tea for table four?” 

“I’ll bring it to them now.” Ivy seizes the tray and quite literally runs it over to them, spilling a considerable deal of it as she drops it in front of them. “Here-you-go-enjoy-okay-bye!” 

The bell rings as she flees outside. Mitzi sighs and goes back to her newspaper.

 

*

 

In the garage, Viktor is working on the truck’s engine, despite the fact there isn’t really anything wrong with it. He doesn’t look up when Ivy walks in. “Dievka. Should be vorking at—” 

Ivy rolls her eyes, cutting him off quickly. “I know I should be at the cafe, Viktor, but you said to tell you if Rocky called.” 

Viktor puts down his wrench, examining his work. “Vhat news?” 

“No developments. He says he’s been crankier than usual, though. Maybe that’s a good sign.” 

“Bah. No good sign.” Viktor picks up the wrench again, frowning in a way that makes Ivy want to sigh. “This business, always end like this— bad. He vill not get better.”

“You don’t know that. The prognosis was good. He’s just having a bit of a hard time recovering, that’s all.” There’s a silence, and she ventures, “you could visit him, you know.” 

“No.” 

“But why not? I’m sure he’d appreciate it.” He doesn’t answer her. “...Viktor.” He still doesn’t say anything, and she sighs. “I think if he was going to die, he would have done it by now. Don’t you?” Silence. “What am I supposed to tell Rocky? Huh? That you don’t give enough of a shit to visit?” Silence. “Viktor.” 

“I give enough of shit for stay away.”  

“What does that even mean? You can’t avoid him forever, you know. What is it, really? Are you scared he won’t recognize you?” He doesn’t respond. “You’re such a baby, Viktor. Just go see him.” Nothing. “Viktor, so help me god, you will stop moping and you will go talk to him. In fact, this isn’t a discussion anymore. I’m setting a date. We’re going.” 

Viktor stands up, wiping his hands on a cloth, and the next thing Ivy knows he has her by the scruff of the neck and is steering her out of the garage. “Hey!” He pushes her outside. She turns to point at him furiously. “You’re not getting out of it, Viktor! This is what people do when they love each other! They visit each other in the gosh danged hospital!” When Viktor’s only response is to turn his back, as silent as ever, she raises her voice. “And you better write him a get well card or else!”

 

*

 

When the cafe closes and the speakeasy opens for the night, Ivy goes back to the college. Her friends are always asking where Calvin is, and each time they do, she finds it harder to lie. Not only is she simply dying to brag about the fact that her boyfriend is a dangerous criminal on the run from the notorious Marigold gang for murdering one of its members in cold blood, but the more time goes by and Calvin still doesn’t contact her, the more she worries, and the harder it gets to think about him. Maybe he’s forgotten all about her. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe, one way or another, he’s never coming back. 

Sitting at the window, her eyes start to burn with tears, but she brushes them away before they have a chance to so much as threaten to muss her eyeliner. Gangsters don’t cry. 

She tries to cheer herself up. She thinks about what it’ll be like when they finally see each other again. They’ll be able to hold hands and kiss and go on dates, just like before. They’re both older now. She can quit school and they can run away together, wherever they want— to Mexico or Canada or even Europe. They could get married and live happily ever after... that is, as long as he’s able to answer a few questions first. They circle around and around in her mind like vultures, always the same ones: _where_ _were you? Why didn’t you write to me? Don’t you care about me at all? Why did you lie to me? You said you were coming right back. Where did you go? Why didn’t you take me with you? Don’t you love me? I love you. Don’t you know that?_

She puts her head in her knees andtries to think about something, anything, else, but nothing in the world can distract her from how miserable she feels, and no matter how hard she tries to forget, it always winds back down to him.

 

*

 

Viktor’s apartment is quiet. He stands in the doorway, staring at the place where he’d last seen Mordecai. It’s a terrible memory and he hates thinking about it, but somehow, at the same time, he can’t seem to stop. 

He’d been doing something unimportant— resting his knees, thinking, watching the sky through the window— when he heard the gunshot. His instincts kicked in and he ran towards the danger, not away from it, and, for his trouble, they shot him, too. His hand goes to the wound. It’s healed. There’s a scar, but that’s not important— just another he can add to the collection. Mordecai has a scar, too, now, he thinks. He hasn’t seen it yet, but if Ivy manages to drag him across the river to Illinois, he will. It’ll be like looking in the mirror. It’s almost poetic. 

When the police arrived, Viktor was beginning to lose consciousness. His first concern was to keep them away from Mordecai, who, at the time (Viktor feels cold remembering it), he was certain was dead. There was a bullet in his skull and a pool of blood surrounding him. He wasn’t moving. Hell, he wasn’t breathing. That’s what no one understands. Rocky doesn’t understand. Ivy doesn’t understand, either, no matter how well she means. No one understands except Viktor. Mordecai was dead, is dead, a dead man walking and talking. That’s what happens when you’re shot in the head: you die. And nothing can convince Viktor that Mordecai is going to be okay.

After forty years of war and carnage, he should hope he knows better than that.


	3. Elijah Metzger

Rocky pawns his violin and buys a calculus workbook. He gives it to Mordecai on his birthday. He doesn’t wrap it. Mordecai would have hated that. He glances at the cover and is immediately interested.

“Calculus?”  

“Calculus.” Rocky grins. “Just a little snack for that big brain o’ yours. Do you like it?” 

“Yes. Arithmetic is among my preferred hobbies.” Mordecai flips it open, beginning to read. “I don’t suppose you happen to have a pencil?” 

Rocky gives him the china marker. If it sparks any kind of memory within him, he doesn’t show it, simply takes it with gratitude. “Thank you.” He starts scribbling in the allotted areas, his handwriting as neat as ever. “You know, you still haven’t told me your name,” he says after a moment, without looking up. 

“Rocky.” 

Mordecai stops what he’s doing to give him a dry look. “No, really.”

Rocky grins wider. “Really.” 

“Your parents must have been sociopaths.” He scoffs, going back to the book. “Rocky, indeed.” 

“What’s your name?” Rocky plays along. Mordecai will sometimes answer this question with his old alias, Elijah Metzger, but it seems the math book has put him enough at ease to tell the truth this time around. 

“Heller. Mordecai Heller.” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Heller.” 

“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine. Although it does beg the question— how did you get into my apartment?” 

“We’re not at your apartment right now. We’re in the hospital.” 

“Hospital?” Mordecai frowns, again pausing mid-pen-stroke. “Whatever for?” 

“You got shot back in September. On the twenty-eighth. Don’t you remember?”

And he feels a little bad, because he knows full well that Mordecai doesn’t, and that his reaction to the question will never vary no matter how often it’s asked or how differently it’s phrased. He stares into nothing, frowning, his pupil dilated to a pinprick, eye twitching ever so slightly as he struggles hopelessly to remember. He lapses into a long silence during which Rocky is able to finish a short poem he’d been writing; then he comes out of it, turning his head and seeming to notice Rocky for the first time. 

“Rocky,” he says. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”


	4. Scalpel

The incident occurrs at seven in the morning on March twenty-ninth, the day after Mordecai’s birthday. Rocky doesn’t show up until it’s long over. The feeling he gets when he finds Mordecai’s room abandoned is chilling and unpleasant, like a bad omen. A male nurse passes him in the hallway, and Rocky recognizes him as Isaiah, a German-Jewish immigrant who always seemed to have the knack for getting along with Mordecai— far better, even, Rocky often felt, than he ever had himself.

“Izzy,” Rocky greets him. 

“Mr. Rickaby.” 

“Where’s Mordecai?” 

“There was an incident.” The nurse stops walking momentarily to give Rocky a sympathetic look. “He’s downstairs.” 

Rocky’s heart sinks when he finds him, handcuffed to a bench with a guard stationed to his right. He’s not fighting, just sitting rather stiffly, staring frigidly at the linoleum with his birthday present tucked safely beneath his free arm. Rocky kneels in front of him and touches his face, but he pulls away, scowling. 

“Don’t touch me,” he says, but the words are in Hebrew. “Who are you?” 

Rocky studies him. There’s a bruise on his cheekbone and dried blood on the front of his uniform. “What happened?” he asks.

“He’s a real psychopath,” the guard replies. “They’re kicking him out.”

“But why?” 

“He stabbed one of the nurses with a scalpel. Got ‘im right in the kidneys.”

Rocky looks at Mordecai, horrified. “Why? Why would you do that?” 

“I want them to let me go. Tell them to let me go.”

“He’s been stealing from the hospital,” the guard continues, speaking over Mordecai as if he is no more than somebody’s petulant child. “They found his stash this morning. Couple syringes, surgical tools, a few pencils... anything sharp, really. And half a bottle of anesthesia.”

The doctors inform him that Mordecai is to be committed to St. Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital. With firsthand knowledge of just how much help can be expected from that place, Rocky assures them that’s all good and fine, then, as soon they have their backs turned, he has them both out of the building and on the next train out of town. At the station, he rings up St. Louis. It’s Ivy, naturally, who picks it up. 

“Rocky?” 

“Bingo, Moll.” 

“Rocky! It is you. How’s tricks? Heard anything from Calvin?” 

“Not yet. Still on the lam, no doubt, the little insurgent.” 

“Oh.” She’s disappointed. “Well, that’s all right.” A pause. “How’s the boyfriend?” 

Rocky glances at Mordecai, who’s standing just outside the booth, nose buried in his book, his blood-spattered inpatient uniform most ineffectively hidden beneath Rocky’s trench coat. “You wanna talk to ‘im?” 

“Are you serious?” Her voice rises shrilly. “Yes! Put him on the phone!”

Mordecai stiffens, his ears perking up, when Rocky surprises him with the receiver, but he takes it in stride. “Maribel Hotel. How can I help you?” 

“Mr. Heller! How are you? It’s Ivy Pepper from Lackadaisy.” 

“Oh. Hello. I’m quite well, thank you. Who is this?” 

“Ivy Pepper— Ruby Pepper’s daughter. Atlas May’s goddaughter?” 

“Ah, of course. Young Miss Pepper. To what do I owe this honor?” 

“Rocky says you’re doing just swell.” 

“Oh, yes, well. He would say that, wouldn’t he?” He frowns, tail swishing. “Who is this?” 

“Oh! Hang on— I’m gonna go get Viktor!” Footsteps and yelling can be heard in the background. Then there’s silence. Mordecai listens for a minute before turning to Rocky. 

“I think she hung up.”

Rocky puts the receiver to his ear. “Hello? Miss Pepper?” Nothing. “Well, damn. I guess we lost ‘er.”

They board the train. Rocky is surprised when Mordecai sits close to him, linking their arms together and resting his head on his shoulder, but he doesn’t move or speak for fear of frightening him away. After a while Mordecai falls asleep just like that, snuggled comfortably against him, just like they used to do a long time ago.


	5. Battalion

Without his violin, Rocky has no way to make money. He and Mordecai sleep on park benches, in alleys, and under bridges until he is able to secure a job pouring coffee at a cozy little diner. He brings Mordecai to work with him most days, though he quickly catches on that it isn’t his kind of place— loud, that is, with peppy jazz music and rowdy groups always coming and going. Mordecai resorts to keeping his nose buried in his book, nestled away in some distant corner where the light is so poor he can barely see, pretending he doesn’t exist. Rocky brings him his favorite tea regularly. He notices with amusement how devoted he is to the book. Once he’s finished with all the blank pages, he starts writing in the margins, filling every available space with numbers Rocky can’t even begin to understand. 

“Why are you so good at math?” he asks on one occasion. Mordecai doesn’t look up. 

“I like it.” 

“I wish I was as smart as you.” 

“Stop cajoling me. What do you want?”  

“Nothing.” 

“Then I’ll thank you to leave me in peace.”

Rocky does so, at his insistence, though he isn’t offended. He knows how Mordecai can be, especially when he’s focused.

After work, Rocky drops Mordecai off at home. They live in a dilapidated apartment building, sharing a single cramped room with several other families, but it isn’t so bad. Like a big family, they take care of each other. It took them a little while to get used to the odd couple that was Rocky and Mordecai, a psychotically grinnning, blue-eyed beam pole and his chilly, dark, mysterious companion. It’s not until a few months in that they cement their collective opinion in favor of the two, and though Rocky wishes he could accredit it to his own unique brand of charm, he knows it’s mostly, if not entirely, because of what Mordecai did that one night. Rocky hadn’t been present to see it happen, but the tenants told him about it afterwards. There was some kind of attempted break-in— two thugs, hidden in shadow, and Mordecai had sprung into action, taking them both down with apparent and terrifying ease. 

“Threw intruder off fire escape,” one of the male tenants recounted. “Son of bitch stronger than he look.”

After that, Rocky wouldn’t have been surprised if the tenants trusted Mordecai with their lives— which, judging by their treatment of him from hence forward, they almost certainly did. They held Rocky in high regard, too, viewing him, perhaps not entirely incorrectly, as Mordecai’s handler.

Most nights, such as tonight, Rocky doesn’t sleep at home. He simply leaves Mordecai there and sets off on his own to the town’s highfalutin-est hooch parlor. He’s not good at poker, but so long as he can get away with cheating, he’s able to cover not only the rent, but food costs for himself, Mordecai, and some of the other tenants, as well— the ones with too many mouths to feed, who treat him like a son (a demented, incessantly alliterating son, but a cherished son nonetheless) and watch after Mordecai throughout the night, when he’s not there to do it himself. It’s a pretty good system, and it lasts for a while, right up until the moment things take a considerable turn for the worse— approaching, come to think of it, the anniversary of those terrible events.

 

*

 

Rocky is jerked awake at an ungodly hour when a child of five jumps onto his stomach, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Mordecai stands over him, impeccably groomed, the bandage on the right side of his face whiter than fresh snow, with a baby in his arms, a seven year old on his left, a six year old on his right, and a three year old hanging onto his tail. Rocky is surprised when Mordecai doesn’t yell at them. He must be getting better at this. 

“Wake up,” Mordecai instructs. “You’re going to be late.”

Rocky sets the five year old down and sits up, stretching luxuriously. “I am awake.” 

“Then let’s go.” But Rocky has scarcely stood before Mordecai stops him. “Wait.” He places the infant into Rocky’s arms and proceeds to fix his hair. Rocky yawns, but complies, albeit impatiently. “Why do you have to toss and turn so much in your sleep? You’re like a damned earthquake.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize. Just stay still. Is that so much to ask?” 

“Just leave it. Who cares?” 

“I do, and you should, but I can see that you don’t.” He sighs, touching Rocky’s cheek in a way that fills Rocky’s stomach with butterflies. “Sometimes I fear you’re nothing but a lost cause. What on earth has possessed me to stay with you after all this time?” 

“I don’t know. Love?”

Mordecai stares in cold indifference at the perfect curve of Rocky’s smile. “I would be so unfortunate.” 

“I love you, too. And you’re better with kids than I expected.” 

“So it would seem. Let’s just pray the diner doesn’t fire you for arming yourself with a small battalion every time you clock into work.” 

Rocky picks up his hat and coat, holding the cooing infant against his chest with one hand. “Then let’s go.”

They walk through the streets like a tiny parade. It’s funny. He certainly never struck anyone as parental, but, after the break-in, when everyone started treating him like a minor celebrity, someone had the brilliant (or possibly deranged) idea that Mordecai, whose grievous mental state was as well established in their community as his occupation of doing absolutely nothing all day aside from recreational arithmetic, should be placed in charge of the young children who would otherwise be home alone while their parents were hard at work in the sweatshops. It’s routine by this point, and, to everyone’s surprise, not only has he been doing a passable job, but the children simply adore him— or, at least, they think his eye patch is the bee’s knees, and the results being much the same, the arrangement is perfect. Not only that, but Rocky also notes that it’s been beneficial for Mordecai to have some responsibility. He doesn’t act so much like a child anymore. He doesn’t turn cold or moody or distant, and his memory is even improving a bit. He doesn’t recall much further past being ejected from St. Joseph’s, but he’s able to differentiate between each passing day, and he hasn’t needed Rocky to re-introduce himself for months... which isn’t to say, however, that he’s one hundred per cent sure who he is. Rocky spat out his tea when, rolling his eyes at something off-colored he had done— tried to teach the baby to pluck ‘Hot Cross Buns’ on a rubber band, or fed a matchstick to one of the children who was curious to see what it tasted like— Mordecai had said, without a trace of irony, “I must have the most idiotic husband in the nation.”

And as Rocky turned redder than a radish and Mordecai regarded the mess he’d made of his shirt half in confusion, half in dismay, the children had just laughed and laughed. 

 

*

 

Viktor isn’t exactly paternal looking, either, but as he towers behind Ivy, there’s not much else to make of him, so that’s what the receptionist goes with. “I’m sorry, sir, but you and your daughter are going to have to step out of line.” 

“But why?” Ivy pleads before Viktor can so much as open his mouth. “We came all this way. We have to see him. We’re family.” 

“I’m very sorry, little miss, but it’s as I said— he’s gone.”  

“But how is that possible? He had a gunshot wound. He was just here!” 

“My records say he was transferred in late March to a psychiatric hospital.” 

Viktor frowns deeply, and the receptionist instinctively withers. “Vhat psychiatric hospital?” 

“St. Mary’s. In Missouri.”  

It comes as a shock, not to mention a mystery. Why on earth hadn’t Rocky informed them? Ivy turns to look at Viktor. “Maybe he just forgot. You know how Rocky is.” 

“Vhy transfer?” Viktor growls, his paralyzing stare making the receptionist hard pressed to maintain a friendly smile.

“Unfortunately, that would be confidential information. I’m very sorry, sir.” 

Out on the sidewalk, Ivy frets aloud as Viktor mulls it over. “I hope they’re all right,” she says. “We have to go see them. Oh, I wish they’d stayed here. That loony bin is the pits. All those dead-eyed patients give me the heebie-jeebies.” 

“Something not right,” Viktor mumbles. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” Viktor puts a hand on her shoulder, steering them in the direction of the train station. She scowls at him.

“This doesn’t change anything. You’re going to talk to him, Viktor. Today.”

He doesn’t argue. Each suppressing their respective suspicions and bad feelings, they take the train out into the country.


	6. Date

The cat has silky caramel fur and expensive clothes. He comes in most days to hassle Rocky. He’ll order a black coffee, then let it go cold while he flirts with him shamelessly. From his booth near the window, Mordecai watches until a child steps in front of him— the seven year old named Henry— blocking his view.

“I’m tired of holding her.” 

“Then give her to David.” Mordecai goes back to his book. 

“She wants you.”

A sigh. “Very well. Give her here.” 

Henry places the baby into his arms. She tries to grab his nose, and he moves out of the way, frowning. “What did we say about keeping our hands to ourselves?” But the baby only laughs.

For reasons known but to god, Henry still doesn’t go away. Mordecai looks at him quizzically. “Well? What else could you possibly want?” 

“How did you lose your eye?”

“That’s no concern of yours.” 

“Can you really not remember? That’s what Rocky told us.” Henry prattles on as Mordecai does his best to ignore him, gazing down into the baby’s smiling, oblivious face. “My mum says you must’ve been injured in the war, but my dad says you’re too young.” 

Mordecai sighs, trying to maintain his temper. “Why don’t you take the others and go to the park?” 

“We can’t go now. We’re waiting for Art.”

“Who?” 

“Art.” The child turns to point at the silky-haired cat. “He always gives us money.” 

“Ah. I see. And what is it you were planning to do with it?” 

“Get ice cream.” 

“You just had breakfast.” 

“Aww, please?” 

“No.” Mordecai nods to the seat across from him. “Sit down and be quiet.” 

Henry obeys him. “How did you really lose your eye?” 

“Not another word or it’s geometry instead of Dickens tonight.” To Mordecai’s relief, that shuts him up, and for a little while, the diner is quiet. The other kids are playing marbles out on the sidewalk. The baby dozes off in his arms. A [wistful song plays](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCxm9kwO98) on the radio.

Mordecai’s eye flicks up. The silky cat, Art, has a tight grip on Rocky’s wrist. Rocky tries to pull away, but the cat doesn’t let him go.

Mordecai slides out of the booth and is there in an instant. “Am I interrupting something?”

Art looks at the baby. “Whose kid is that?” 

“Ours,” Mordecai answers coldly. There’s an awkward silence. Then Art smiles at Rocky, letting him go. 

“See you around, sweetheart,” he says, then winks at him and leaves. Mordecai glares at his back as it goes out the door. 

“Sweetheart, indeed,” he scoffs. “What a brazen, lowlife degenerate.” 

“Yeah.” With a wily grin, Rocky tucks several bills into Mordecai’s jacket pocket. “But he tips pretty good.”

 

*

 

It’s Saturday night and the tables are going to be hot, but before he can join in on the action, Rocky has to take his odd little family home. The children are laughing and playing recklessly as they walk, but he and Mordecai are occupied with another pointless argument. 

“They don’t like Dickens.” 

“They like it better than math.” 

“They’re children, Mordecai. Read them something for children.” 

“Such as?” 

“Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland...” 

“We don’t have any of those.” 

“Then make something up. What about all those stories I used to tell you at the hospital? You don’t remember any of them?” Mordecai is quiet. Realizing what he’d said, Rocky feels like hitting himself. “I’m sorry.” 

“Nevermind.” 

“Mordecai—” 

“Nevermind.” They stop in front of their building. “It’s all right. Really.”

They’re silent for a moment. Rocky averts his gaze. “I’ll be home by morning.” 

“I know.” Mordecai kisses his cheek, something he hasn’t done since St. Louis. “Good night. I love you.” 

They’re just three words, but he’s never said them before, and, though Mordecai doesn’t appear to notice, they make Rocky happier in that moment than he’s ever been in his life. “I love you, too” is his reply.

He doesn’t set out for his destination until he’s certain Mordecai and the kids have made it safely inside. He gets about ten blocks away before a shiny red car pulls up on his right, gliding slowly along to match his pace. The window rolls down to reveal a familiar face. 

“Rocky! How’s tricks?” 

“Art.” Rocky is almost too startled to grin. “Nice car.” 

“Ready for our date?”

“Date? I never agreed to any date.”

His heart skips a beat as, turning his head, he notices two things simultaneously: firstly, Art isn’t alone in the car, and he and his companions, a pair of dark-haired cats, plus the orange-haired driver, are dressed in dark suits with a marigold on the lapel. Secondly, they’re armed, all of them, with expensive, ornate pistols aimed straight at him.

“Well, it’s never too late to change your mind. Why don’t you hop in?”

 

*

 

Mordecai has scarcely opened the door before the children run past him inside. They go to their parents, hugging and chattering, seemingly oblivious to just how exhausted they are. Mordecai carries the infant to the eldest of the women, a grey-haired former Texan who is cooking dinner for them all. “Your child,” he says. 

“Give her to Isabella. I’m a trifle busy.” 

“But she’s your baby.”

“No, she isn’t.” 

“Oh. Whose is she, then? I agreed to watch her for the day, but I certainly won’t do it all night.” 

“Just give her to Isabella.”

As Mordecai does so, one of the children chimes out, “someone’s at the door!” All heads turn, and the apartment falls silent as suddenly and completely as if a spell was cast. Their unannounced guests are two perfect strangers (emphasis on strange, Mordecai thinks), one male, one female, both dressed in dark suits with a marigold on the lapel. The woman has bloodred lipstick and a tight, black bun. The male has a joint in his mouth and both of his hands wrapped in bandages, like a boxer. Taken together, they look precisely as if they just crawled out of the depths of the underworld.

“Good evenin’,” the woman says. “We got de right address, do we not?” 

“I’m not sure.” The grey-haired woman wipes her hands on her apron, approaching them with barely disguised befuddlement. “Are you looking for someone?”

The male points at Mordecai with a wide smile. “Dere he is, Serafine!” 

“So he is. I almos’ not recognize him wit’ de one eye.” Serafine slinks toward Mordecai, disregarding the children who scatter out of her path like mice. “Hello, peekon. Did you missed us?”

Mordecai stares at her, feeling strange; he’s not sure why, but somehow her presence in front of him is making his head go foggy, his thoughts fade more quickly, his memories of the day before, of just that evening, threatening to vanish to make room for the confusion he’s feeling right now. He knows this woman. He’s seen her before. Dazed, he asks, “I beg your pardon, but have we met?” 

Serafine exchanges glances with Nico, then smiles at him again. “No, peekon.” He sees her hand go into her jacket, the glint of a pistol, the shocked and terrified faces of the tenants— his family— and the wicked twist of her bloodred lips. “Never.”

 

*

 

Viktor and Ivy arrive back in St. Louis long after the speakeasy has closed for the night. The return trip was silent. Every word either of them could have said had already crossed both their minds. 

As they stand side by side in front of Little Daisy’s darkened windows, Ivy decides to say some of them, anyway. 

“First Calvin.” Her voice is soft. “Now Rocky and Mordecai. And the best I can do is sit around in our stupid little restaurant, waiting for a call.” Viktor doesn’t say anything. Ivy turns her head abruptly, her short hair swishing, voice rising in anger and indignation. “They can’t do this to us. They can’t just disappear. What are we supposed to do?” Viktor has no answer. They lapse into silence yet again. Ivy sighs, wrapping her arms around herself. “Can’t you do something? You’re... I mean, you  _were_ a professional. You can track them down. Can’t you?” 

“No.”

And that one word, the first and only thing Viktor has said since St. Mary’s, is enough to break whatever had been holding her up. She makes some flimsy excuse and hurries away before he can notice her crying, but, even though she’s careful to stay on his blind side, he notices it, anyway.


	7. Psychopath

“What’s Marigold doing in Springfield?”

It’s a fair question, but Art seems no more inclined to answer it than he is to keep his hands to himself. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. When Rocky realized Art was actually with Marigold, he’d assumed the whole flirtatious routine was just a cover, but now he’s starting to wonder if that’s really the case. 

“Your eyes are so beautiful,” Art is saying. “I could get lost in them.” 

Rocky doesn’t know how to respond. 

“They shot him because of you. Did you know that?” Art leans into him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Because he was seeing you. They found out, and BAM. Put the hit on him. All his supposed talents didn’t do squat. Now he’s even loonier than before.” 

“He’s not loony.” 

“Oh, yeah? Why’s he living in the slums with you and those brats?” 

“How did you find us?” 

“We have our ways.” 

It’s quiet for a second. With his eyes fixed on the floor, Rocky hasn’t seen much of the room they’re in, but he can tell that it’s richly furnished, in spite of the darkness, and that he and Art are the only ones in it, aside from what can only be Art’s bodyguards. 

“You’re so pretty,” Art tells him. “You have a pretty face.” Rocky says nothing. “Why are you so head-over-heels for that psychopath?” 

“He’s not a psychopath.” Rocky chooses his words carefully, but it’s hard to think. “I mean, sure, he might close himself off sometimes, and yes, you could argue that he’s shed more than his fair share of blood, but in spite of all that I still think he’s a good person, deep down inside. And...” His mouth quirks into a tiny smile, the words making his heart flutter. “...and I love him.” 

“Then you’re loony, too,” Art says. “He’s a killer. You’ll find out one day. He’ll lose his mind for good and he’ll reach for the first thing that’s there, and that thing will be you. And he’ll kill you.”

Rocky is suddenly on his feet. He tackles Art to the ground, pins him, and raises a hand to strike, but before he can do so, a guard pulls him away. He closes his eyes, waiting to die, but it doesn’t happen. Art is sprawled on the floor, looking at him in surprise. The gun is still on him, but they haven’t shot, and, from the looks of it, they aren’t about to, either. 

“What’s this about?” Rocky demands. “If you brought me here to kill me, then just do it already. Otherwise, let me go. I have other things to worry about. I don’t know if you know this, but I actually have a lot of mouths to feed.” 

“So responsible.” Art smiles, though he still doesn’t get up. “Where was that attitude when your cousin needed it?” 

Rocky’s blood runs cold. “Freckle?” 

“It’s a real shame. You put him smack dab on the path to hell. Now you’re hanging back, with your shitty excuse for a family, but you let him go on ahead. What? He doesn’t matter to you?”

Rocky tries again in vain to hit him. Art laughs. “You’re pathetic.” 

Rocky doesn’t stop fighting. Art finally gets up and goes over to him, holding his face still, their eyes locked together. “You’re gonna be a big help.”


	8. Kids

The children are gathered around Serafine, their wide eyes fixated on her face as she tells them stories. Mordecai watches silently, listless on the sofa at Nico’s side. His hands are tied in front of him, obscured from view beneath his neatly folded suit jacket. The Savoys had insisted that binding him was necessary, but he hadn’t wanted the children to worry. One of them runs up to him, gripping his knee and smiling. 

“Uncle, the weird lady told us you’re blessed by a crocodile god.” 

“Gods aren’t real,” Mordecai curtly responds. “She’s filling your heads with utter nonsense. You would do well not to listen to a word of it.” 

The child leaves. Nico nudges him playfully. “Dey are children, peekon. Let dem have fun. Do you know what dat word mean? Fun?” Mordecai pointedly ignores him. The children may not realize they’re being held hostage, but he’s neither stupid nor willing to pretend. Nico sighs. “We tol’ you no hard feelin’s. We not bring you here to kill you. Why can’ we be friends again— eh? Like bag in de day.” 

“Because,” Mordecai retorts, “as I’ve clearly established, I don’t know who you are, and even if I did, there’s still the fact that you broke into my home and kidnapped not only myself, but over a dozen innocent children.”

“We not gon hurt dem.” Nico falters, rethinking. “ _Mais_ , we not gon hurt dem so long as tings go the way they supposed.” 

What does that mean, Mordecai wants to ask, but he keeps himself silent. Now isn’t a good time for talking. Anything he can think to say will only damn him further, and there’s no pretext, anyway, that he has any clue what’s going on.

Nico touches his bandage, startling him, and he has to surpress the urge to flinch. “Can I see what’s under here?” Silence. “Is dat a yes?” 

Before Mordecai can formulate a response, the door opens and four men enter: the silky cat and Rocky, flanked by a pair of security guards. As soon as they see him, the children rush forward, shouting and laughing, to cling to him in any way they can. With his arms soon full and his legs firmly anchored by hugs, Rocky is an inch away from losing his balance. In spite of the situation, Mordecai can’t help but feel a flicker of affection, the tiniest hint of a smile, as he watches Rocky carefully peel one of them off and set her down. “Jeez, you’re strong. Almost broke my neck just now. Hey!” He cringes as his ears are tugged. “Easy, easy.” They drag him down to make a dogpile, and he’s helpless against the sheer number of them. “Easy!” 

The silky cat— Art, Mordecai remembers, with some effort— watches with annoyance. “Hey. Can we wrap it up?”

The children ignore him until he takes out his pistol and fires a shot into the flowery wallpaper, at which point he succeeds in getting not only their attention, but everyone else’s as well. “Very good.” He stows the weapon away. Rocky is left sprawled on the floor, alone, as the children all run to either cling to Mordecai or hide behind the sofa. Rocky and Mordecai lock eyes. An unspoken message travels between them. 

“So,” Art says, clapping his hands together. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

“Idiot.” Serafine cuts him off. “Why you do dat for? Our boss gon have to pay damages.”

“Much more o dat willy-nilly shootin’ gon wake de neighbours.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Art snaps. “Anyway, as I was saying.” He seizes Rocky and pulls him to his feet. “Find that cousin of yours and bring him to me, or these kids are toast. Did you hear me? I’m going to violently murder all fifteen of these little snot-nosed idiots if you don’t bring me the trigger-happy, milquetoast son of a bitch who thought he could get away with murdering Asa Sweet.” 

Rocky either can’t think of anything to say in response or simply doesn’t dare. As some of the younger kids start to cry, Art shoves Rocky towards Mordecai. “You can take the psychopath with you. I don’t care. But the kids are staying right here. And don’t even think about coming back without McMurray, because believe you me, that’s not going to work out for anyone.”


	9. Babysitters

“You got a knife?”

Rocky grins at Serafine, knowing full well she does, and she raises an eyebrow, amused, yet somehow unsurprised, that he doesn’t hold a grudge. Indeed, he actually seems to find it funny. She gives him the knife from her belt, the same one she’d stabbed him with, oh, so many lifetimes ago, and he cuts the rope off of Mordecai’s wrists. 

“Thank you.” Mordecai rubs the burns gingerly, lowering his voice. “Rocky, what’s going on?” 

Rocky doesn’t answer. He kneels in front of the children, forcing a smile. “Gather round, ducklings. Aunt Serafine and Uncle Nico are gonna babysit for a few days. Doesn’t that sound interesting? They’ll teach you some voodoo— it’ll be berries.”

Though this notion does seem to make them feel better, the children are still hesitant to let him go, clinging to him with whimpers of “we want to go home” and “why can’t we stay with you?” As a last resort Rocky takes the baby from Henry and, standing up, puts her straight into Nico’s arms (despite his fomidable constitution, Rocky still trusts him more than Serafine, if only by a narrow margin), as if it’s the safest place in the world for her to be. Nico is surprised. He’s never held a baby before. Her eyes are blue, like the sea, and her body is warm and soft and tiny and delicate in his arms. He has the sudden fear he might drop her, but he tries to hide it, smiling a little and rocking her gently. “Aww. You _bebe_ is kind of cute.” He coos at her, “Nicodeme got you.”

Suddenly and without warning, Mordecai snatches the baby from him and steps back, glaring. “You’ll crush her.” 

“No, I won’t.” Nico follows, hands outstretched. “Give her back. I’ll be careful.” 

“Give her here.” Serafine intervenes, lifting the baby from Mordecai’s arms, and, for some reason, he doesn’t think to try and stop her. “De child need a woman touch. What her name?” 

“It’s Anastasia,” Mordecai says, but at the same time Rocky answers, “it’s Bluebird.” They all look at him, and he shrugs. “She likes it when I call her that.”

Mordecai feels a flicker of annoyance. “Bluebird isn’t a name.” 

“It’s a nickname.” 

“It’s absurd.” 

“Shut up.” Serafine cradles the infant so gently, so expertly, Rocky immediately realizes he should have given it to her to begin with. “Go on you little mission. De chi’ren are safe wit us. But—” she lowers her voice so only the adults can hear— “don’ come back wit’ out de boy.”

They look across the room where to Art is standing idly, waiting for them to wrap things up. Rocky supposes there’s no point putting it off. “Come on.” To the sound of children starting to cry afresh, he takes Mordecai’s hand and pulls him to the door. 

“So long.” Art winks at them as they pass. “Don’t forget to write.”


	10. Confusion

Rocky’s head is spinning. So many things are happening at once, and he’s not sure what to do, not that he ever is, but this is the first time people’s lives are riding on whatever decision he makes and it’s enough to make his stomach churn. He pulls Mordecai into an alley so he can pace. Mordecai watches him, a completely separate problem. 

“Rocky,” he says. “I don’t feel well.” 

“I’m thinking.” 

“What’s going on?” He puts a hand to his face, or what remains of it, anyway. “The man and woman back there, they claimed they knew me. But I don’t remember them.” There’s a tense pause as Rocky tries and fails to think of a simple answer. “You know, don’t you?” 

“I can’t explain it all now. We have to... have to...”

He trails off uselessly; he has no clue what they should do. For starters, he hasn’t had contact with Freckle in almost a year. He could be anywhere. He could phone Ivy, something he’s neglected to do, with some guilt, for many months, but no matter how angry she’s going to be, it’s still worth a try. After all, it’s possible Freckle has come home by now— not likely, but possible. And he can’t think of anything else. But, even if Freckle has returned to St. Louis, and Rocky is able to reach him, hypothetically, then all that means is that he’ll have to turn him over to Marigold, and they’re no doubt going to kill him or worse. Foolish as he was, Rocky had assumed they had let Freckle off the hook, somehow, for Asa’s murder, or, at least, that they’d given up trying to find him, but he was wrong. And it’s left him in a mire. 

“Have to find Freckle,” he mumbles vaguely. No matter which way he approaches the dilemma, there seems to be no good outcome. Either Freckle dies, or the children die. 

As Rocky drops to his knees and is sick behind the dumpster, Mordecai turns his head to take in their surroundings. The Marigolds had blindfolded them and dropped them off here, by a crummy old gas station, motel, and diner. They have no idea where the kids are being kept.

At a loss for what to do, but as impatient to do get moving as he is unwilling to linger another millisecond in this deplorable part of town, he goes over to Rocky and pets his back perfunctorily. “There, there.” Come on, he hopes his tone communicates, let’s go. Rocky stands up, wiping his mouth. There wasn’t much; he hasn’t eaten in a few days.

“Lend me some scratch,” he says. “I need to make a phone call.”

 

*

 

Ivy picks up on the first ring. “Little Daisy, how may I help you?” 

“There’s my little floor-flusher.” 

“Rocky?!” 

She’s furious, and Rocky spends the next few minutes struggling to get a word in edgewise as she berates him for not having called sooner. “We were scared half to death” and “I’m going to strangle you with your own stupid lucky tie” are among the choice phrases that make him wince, but, in spite of all of it, he has to admit it’s oddly comforting to hear her voice again. After a while, he manages to cut her off.

“Hey, pipe down for just one second, will you? We have a bit of a situation on our hands and I could really use your help.” 

“What else is new?” 

“Just tell me, has our favorite Irish hood found his way home yet, or no?” 

“Freckle?” Her voice takes on a different quality, as if all the anger has suddenly evaporated. “Still no sign.” 

“That’s a shame.” A thought ocurrs to him. “By any chance have you lured another poor sap to dance with you while the lad is away?”

“What? No!”

“Are you lying?” He grins. “You little vamp.”

There’s a click as she hangs up. Rocky goes back to the table. “No luck.” 

“Who was that?” 

“A friend from St. Louis.” Rocky sits down, focusing on his coffee, forcing his voice to sound nonchalant. “Do you remember St. Louis? We used to live there, you and me.” 

“Together?” 

“You could say that.”

There’s a long silence before Mordecai lifts his gaze from his lap, his one eye filled with questioning. “What happened?”

Rocky looks at him. It’s odd, almost surreal, to see him like this, so open and vulnerable; he really doesn’t remember. “It’s a long story,” he cautiously begins. “We were dealing with a lot of high stakes back in those days. There was always the risk of being shot, and you were about as reckless as a hurricane. Eventually someone forgot a little bit of lead right in your eye.” He falters, lowering his gaze. “Everyone thought you were going to die. I still don’t know how you pulled through. You just... did, somehow.”

They lapse into silence. Mordecai touches the bandage. “Oh” is all he can think to say, after a while. Then, “were we involved with organized crime?” 

“What other high-stakes, gunslinging careers are viable in St. Louis?” 

“And you?” 

“I wasn’t as good at it as you were, but I was there. And so was Freckle.” 

“Your cousin. The man they’re after. The one we’re tracking down now.” Mordecai pictures a Nico-sized, machine-gun toting outlaw maniac. He steels his resolve as Rocky, unaware of the blatantly incorrect mental image Mordecai has concoted, sips his coffee. 

“You got it.”

“Where is he? In St. Louis?” 

“Actually, it seems like that’s the one place he’s not. Really narrows it down, doesn’t it?” 

“So what are we going to do?” No answer. “...Rocky?” 

“I’m thinking.”


	11. Ohio

The baseball card features a black and white photograph of Herman S. “Hi” Bell. His name and the words “St. Louis Cardinals” are printed underneath. It’s signed. Calvin holds it in both hands, staring down at it like it’s pure gold. Asa chuckles, watching him.

“I thought you might like it,” he says. “Well? What do you think?” 

“Thank you” is all Calvin can manage. 

They’re sitting on the king-sized bed in Asa’s suite. Asa is reclined on the pillows, a cigarette in his mouth and a glass of whiskey in his hand. Calvin has his legs crossed, his shoulders slightly tucked in; a warm breeze graces his bare back, the little bumps of his spine like ripples on water. He’s carefully avoiding eye contact, well aware that Asa is staring at him. “How did you know I liked baseball?” he asks, keeping his gaze down, his voice a whisper. 

“You told me.” 

“I didn’t think you were listening.” 

“I made a mental note of it at the time. This is a business transaction, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.” 

Calvin feels uncomfortable suddenly. He hesitates, then crawls to Asa’s side and curls up next to him the way he knows he likes. He’ll stay there for a little while before leaving— he always does. 

Asa puts an arm around him. “You’re asking a lot of me, you know.”

“I know.” 

“Mr. Heller is a good employee. Never met anybody like him in all my years. What if he kills you? Have you thought about that at all? If you ask me, this whole revenge shtick isn’t worth it. I mean, your cousin’s already gone off and joined the soul circus. Not like he gives a damn whether you avenge him or not.”

“I have to try.” 

“Okay, but don’t be surprised when things go sour. I won’t be able to stop him, you know.” 

“I know.” 

“It’s not too late to back out.”

Calvin doesn’t answer, merely thinking, _but it is, though._ He’s already gone too far. If he backs out now, it will all have been for nothing. 

“Still,” Asa speaks into his silence. “It’s a hell of a lot to ask of me.” 

“I know.” 

“You’re lucky I like you so much.”

 

*

 

Calvin opens his eyes. The sounds of nature surround him— the twittering of birds, the wind in the trees, the rushing of a stream. He’d gone somewhere for a moment, gotten lost in a memory. He focuses on the present. Come back, he thinks. Forget about it.

He looks down. In his good hand is the baseball card. The words “St. Louis Cardinals” sear his eyes. He drops it as suddenly as if it was on fire, and it falls into the stream and floats away, turning dark with water. He watches it go. A dragonfly zooms over his head as he strips off his clothes— pants, shirt, shoes, suspenders, jacket, trench coat, and tie. Then he submerges himself up to the waist and sits down, curling his tail around himself and hugging his knees.

He’s injured. The cool water is soothing on his burned skin. It’s his hand— just his hand. He doesn’t move it. It still hurts.

When he’s done with his bath, he tries to build a fire, but several issues arise. With only his left hand to work with, he’s almost too clumsy to manage it; then, when the flames leap up, dancing in his eyes, he has the sudden urge to be violently sick. He stumbles backwards, eyes wide, then kicks dirt onto the fire until it’s out. The night falls dark and cold. He sucks it up and builds another fire. Then he falls asleep in his underwear, trench coat wrapped around him like a blanket. The cold, hard ground, covered in dead leaves and crawling with bugs, is comforting. It reminds him of when he was a kid. He’s been in the city too long. 

It sort of makes him glad he never made it to New York, in the end.

 

*

 

When it turned out Rocky was alive, Calvin wasn’t sure what to do, at first.

He stands in the hallway outside the Savoy suite. He knows Mordecai is inside. He’d followed him. He steels his nerves. Raises a hand to knock. The door swings open and Mordecai steps out, and with him is Rocky, half out of it and dressed in the most bizarre get-up Calvin’s ever seen him in, which is really saying something. And there’s something wrong with his eyes. It takes almost a minute to figure out he’s on drugs. It takes less than a minute to realize he’s injured, from the way he’s limping along. 

It’s Mordecai’s fault, that much is obvious, but, even after all he’s been through, Calvin can’t find the will to kill him anymore, because Rocky is alive— injured and shitfaced and ridiculous, but alive.

 

*

 

When he wakes up, he’s hungry. He spends the morning hunting rabbits, birds, and frogs, but every time he catches one, which isn’t too often (though it’s not too rarely, either) guilt overcomes him and he lets it go, watching with a smile as it hops or flies away. By late afternoon he’s really going to have to do something, so he forages plants and drinks from the stream. Little fish dart away from his hands as he scoops water again and again. He picks flowers and makes a chain; he lies beneath the setting sun and watches the clouds drift across the sky. 

It’s August of 1928. Eleven months ago, he had shot Asa Sweet, night manager of Marigold, and fled into hiding. Five months ago, he’d formed an alliance with a gang in Columbus. Two weeks ago, he stabbed them in the back.

Yesterday, he escaped.


	12. The Killing Type

In the middle of the night, searing, sucking pain jerks Calvin awake. His hand feels like it’s on fire. He crawls to the stream and submerges his arm up to the elbow. He can feel his heartbeat from his fingertips to his forearm and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

It’s not until the sun rises a few hours later that he’s able to take a look at the injury. It’s bad— really bad. The pain and the sight of it, the roasted, dry flesh, makes him nauseous. He should’ve seen a doctor days ago, but, needless to say, it hadn’t been an option at the time. 

He starts to get dressed, but halfway through the pain intensifies and he has to pause to dunk his hand again, soaking his shirt by accident in the clear water. When he’s done, dizziness overtakes him and he rolls over onto his back and stares, panting, up at the sky, at the swaying branches of the trees, his hand clutched to his chest. Already he can feel the pain starting to come back.

 

* 

 

The look on Mordecai’s face was as blank as a sheet of paper, but Calvin could tell he was confused by the way he and Asa greeted each other, like old friends, like family. Calvin had to hide a smile. It was incredibly satisfying. But that feeling soon died when he found himself, for the first time in a long time, alone with Asa.

“Back again? Well, it’s settled— you have a death wish, kiddo.” 

Calvin’s eyes are locked on the carpet. “It’s Rocky,” he whispers. 

“For the love of— again?” Asa stands, rolling his eyes. “What is with that cousin of yours?” 

Calvin wishes he knew how to answer that question; instead he raises his eyes, a hint of accusation in them. “Why didn’t you tell me he was alive?”

Asa shrugs. “I didn’t know. How could I?” 

“But you’re the one who ordered the hit on him.” Calvin hears his voice rising, but he’s beyond the point of caring. “You lied to me. You used me.” 

“Hey now, calm down. What exactly did I lie about?” 

“It wasn’t Mordecai I should’ve gone after— it was you.” 

Asa sighs, as if Calvin is being needlessly difficult. “Maybe, hypothetically. But as we’ve already established, your cousin’s alive. It was all just a big misunderstanding. So what are you upset about?” 

Calvin closes his eyes, forces himself to remember why he’s here. “Mordecai is stalking me.”

It’s a long time before Asa answers. He takes a drag off his cigar and arches a brow, smiling imperceptibly. “Really,” he finally says. Calvin nods. “And...?” 

“You can make him stop.” 

Asa sighs again, a long-suffering, dramatic sigh. “I don’t know, kid. I’m pretty much done with you.” 

“Please.”

It’s silent again for a long time. Calvin’s heart is hammering. He’s filled with hate— for himself, for Rocky, for his mother (who would burn him alive at the stake if she ever found out, which she almost did, in point of fact, when he threw up in the confession booth last week), for Mordecai, and for Asa most of all. But really, aside from nothing, what can he do? Rocky needs him. He’s never going to know just what Calvin is doing for his sake, what he has done, but he needs him nonetheless. And Calvin won’t let him down— no matter how easy that would be, he can’t do it.

It helps that Asa likes him. It helps that he pays him. It helps that he’s obviously missed him, in spite of anything he might say to trick him into thinking otherwise. It helps that he’s not all bad, Asa. “Come here,” Calvin hears him say, and when he flicks his eyes up he sees him with one hand outstretched, a smile on his face. 

 

*

 

It hurts. Calvin is crawling, his breaths coming in short gasps, eyes screwed tightly shut, but he doesn’t know where he is, what day it is, what he’s doing there. Bad memories dive at him like wasps, stinging and biting and making him groan. He drags himself into the stream, fully dressed, puts his head under and waits for the rushing current to carry his trauma away, but it only succeeds on making it impossible to breathe, and as his outside goes up in the flames of his past, his insides fill with cold water, with tiny, wiggling fish, and he’s burning and drowning somehow both at the same time, a fireball, a desperate attempt at catharsis by means of suicide, but it isn’t working. It isn’t working.

 

*

 

It’s been weeks. Rocky’s been in St. Mary’s for two months, Mordecai hasn’t spoken to Calvin since that first night, when Asa told him to keep his distance, and Asa has been ringing Calvin up almost nightly. 

“Who keeps calling you?” Ivy asked him once.

“My mom,” he’d lied. He always lies. 

“Oh.” She didn’t believe him.

 

*

 

Asa has him by the hair. “Tell me.”

Calvin chokes, “it was me— it was me.” 

“You’re lying.”

“It’s true.”

“Please. You’re not the killing type.”

In desperation, Calvin tells Asa to check his trench coat. The weapon, his pistol, is, or rather, was, Wes’s. Asa turns it over in his hands, examining it almost as if to make sure it’s real, and whistles, long and low. 

“Well, I’ll be. You really did kill that son of a bitch.” He turns to grin at Calvin, as if he’s seeing him clearly for the first time. “Congratulations, kiddo. You’re a murderer.”

Then Asa has him by the back of the skull, and Calvin has the sheets gripped in his teeth, in his claws, and in the morning they’ll be torn and Asa will berate him, but in a playful, joshing way. But right now Asa is pulling his ears and his hair, and Calvin is trying to get away from him, if only in his mind, but it hurts too much to allow him to think of anything else.

 

*

 

He wakes up in a hospital. They’re cutting off his clothes. He kicks one of them square in the face and they reel back and then there’s commotion and shouting, and Calvin tries to scramble away from it all but falls with a painful thud and a crack from the gurney onto the floor. Hands are grabbing him, pulling him back to his feet, his mutilated clothes hanging off him, and he tries to fight, but someone sticks him with a needle. As his vision goes dark the last thing he sees is the round, pale faces of the nurses standing over him and a sign on the wall marking this part of the hospital as the burn unit.

It’s September first.


	13. Valerian

The cat prints his name in neat letters. His genial personality is offset by his appearance, with his grey suit and patterned tie, brown fur and yellow eyes. He gives off a completely harmless, utterly clueless vibe, and while Calvin knows he doesn’t have to be afraid of him, he also can’t help but think that this is a man who doesn’t know jack about shit. Not that he says so, of course. His mother raised him with a civil tongue in his head, and, for the most part, in spite of the trauma and danger of a gangster career, he’s done his best to keep it that way. This is why, when the man asks, with a smile, if he can sign his bandaged arm, Calvin just shrugs and nods. Still, it’s hard not to find it weird when he actually does it. 

“I have a son who’s gettin’ to be around your age,” the man says as Calvin stares at him curiously. “Real sweet kid. Baseball fan. You like baseball?” Calvin nods. “What team?” 

“The Cardinals.”

The man leans forwards, smiling apologetically. “What’s that? You gotta speak up.” Calvin has to repeat himself once or twice before the man hears him. “The Cardinals? You from Missouri? Beautiful state. Lotsa flowers. And good ol’ St. Louie. Ever been there?” Calvin nods. “Not me. Born and raised in Iowa.” He goes on like this for a good few minutes, just beating his gums. After a while, he breaks off and switches tacks, tilting his head, and says, “y’know, you don’t seem like a criminal to me. You’re so quiet. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” 

Calvin blinks, taking a moment to register the phrase, which triggers a certain unwelcome memory. They stare at each other for a beat or two. Then Calvin seizes the wastebasket and is violently sick. The patterned tie cat watches, slightly perturbed. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, my.”

When Calvin finishes, he wipes his mouth, sinking back in his chair. “Sorry,” he says.  

“Hey, don’t sweat it. I know you’ve been through a lot recently. How’s your hand?” 

“It’s fine.” 

“I think I know what happened to it. They did that to you, didn’t they? When you dropped the dime on them?” Calvin nods. “Well. That’s certainly interesting.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Let’s move on to the questions, shall we? Er, if you’re quite ready, that is.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Are you sure? You know, you are technically still under the care of the hospital. If you’re not feeling well, you’re not obligated to spend any more time speaking to—” 

“I’m fine.” 

The patterned tie cat is taken aback. “Okay,” he says after a second. “All right. Okay.” He looks at his papers. “If I could just get you to state your full name.” Calvin stiffens, saying nothing. The cat waits patiently. “...Young man. Your name.”  

“You’re the police?” 

“Yes, that’s right.” 

“And I’m under arrest?” 

“I’m afraid so.”

“So are you gonna tell my mom about this?”

“Um. What?” 

“My mom. She doesn’t know I’m a criminal. She can’t find out. She’ll kill me.” 

“Um... well. I’m afraid that’s, uh... if you could just, uh... I mean, we can put you in contact with your mother, if you’d like? Weren’t you given a phone call?” Calvin is silent. “Young man?” Silence. “Young man, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to cooperate.” But nothing he can say is enough to persuade Calvin to respond, and in the end he’s forced to call it quits, sighing, “okay, then. I think that’s enough for today. I’ll come back once you’re feeling a bit better. All right? All right. Well. Good evening to you.”

 

*  

 

Calvin likes his room in the hospital. It’s white and clean and peaceful; there’s even a radio. He listens to soft jazz, makes paper chains out of old newspapers, and plays tiddlywinks on the floor. There’s an officer stationed outside of his door at all times in case he tries to escape, and they rotate out, but not one of them seems to consider Calvin any sort of serious threat. One officer in particular often chats with him about cinema or girls or the weather. Calvin likes that one. He doesn’t know his name. 

“Is it true you ratted out the Valerian gang?” the officer asks him one day. Calvin’s heart skips a beat in alarm and he avoids having to answer by pretending to be absorbed in a magazine. The officer lets the subject drop. 

Calvin gets three meals a day and medicine for his burned hand. All the nurses are stuck on him, making him blush whenever they imply as much and giggling amongst themselves when he does, but his shyness, in their opinion, only makes him cuter. 

He doesn’t like them much.

 

*

 

It seems to take forever for help to arrive. The patterned tie cat, who, by this point, Calvin knows is called Kenneth Manley, has started to get on his nerves. He’s a constant reminder that, if he can’t find a way to escape the airtight hospital within a certain time limit, he’ll be spending the rest of his life in the big house. He’s also a reminder of every traumatizing thing Calvin has been through in his life, with his constant questioning, wheedling, chitchatting, and attempts to draw answers out of him, always with determination, rarely with success. Fortunately, to Calvin’s relief, Ivy shows up well before his hand has finished healing (though, to his surprise, she doesn’t have Viktor with her, but when questioned regarding this topic, she turns moody and upset (“that doublecrosser wanted to abandon you here”)). And she has enough gang connections (not with Valerian, needless to say, but with others) to break Calvin out, and she does so without needing to be asked, which is good, because Calvin’s one and only phone call was definitely monitored. But Ivy is sharp. She doesn’t need to be told he needs rescuing— she just knows.


	14. Getaway

Ivy introduces Calvin to the gangsters who helped break him out, a man called Sally and a woman called Jean. Sally drives, Jean rides shotgun, and Ivy and Calvin sit side by side in the back. It’s a while before anyone says anything. Calvin knows he should try to apologize, but for the life of him, he can’t think of the right words to say. Ivy waits a long time until, with a sigh, she realizes it’s up to her to break the silence. She asks where he’s been, but, to her annoyance, he doesn’t answer. “I came all this way to save you. Don’t you have anything to say to me?” 

“Thank you.”

“Other than that. Where have you been? Why didn’t you call me? And what the hell happened to your hand?” Silence. “Calvin.” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

He shrugs, eyes averted. “I don’t know.”

She’s silent for a moment, staring at him in perfect disbelief. Then she slumps back, folding her arms, to stare out of the window. “Goddamn typical.”


	15. Curveball

Mordecai waits somewhat impatiently for Rocky to exit the pawn shop. When he finally does, he’s wearing a grin like the crescent moon. That afternoon finds them in the park, where Rocky plays the violin while Mordecai grows frustrated. “What are we doing here?” Rocky doesn’t answer until he finishes his song, takes his hat off, and bows to a couple who paused to drop money into his case. Then he turns to smile at him, putting his hat back on askance.

“I thought some music might help me think.” 

“We should be looking for McMurray.” 

“We are.” Rocky puts the violin back under his chin and resumes playing. “Sort of. I just need to figure out where we should start. I was planning on coming down here, anyhow, to get my violin back.”

Mordecai didn’t know Rocky could play the violin. The graceful movement of his arm, the soothing melody, is almost nice. He watches a little while longer, then turns his head and sighs, feeling hopelessly out of place amidst the strolling, happy couples, the chess-playing elderly, the young children laughing and running amok without a care in the world. It’s a beautiful day, but Mordecai can’t appreciate it, not with the knowledge that every second they spend here is a second wasted. 

He glances sideways at Rocky, his thoughts straying from their current dilemma. At any given time, there’s something about him Mordecai can’t explain— all of his odd quirks and mannerisms, his obsession with pancakes, the delight he gets from squeezing as much alliteration and rhyming as possible into everday speech, and, most of all, his fierce, nigh unshakable loyalty, so close to love it’s getting harder and harder to ignore with each passing day. He recalls every time he basically told Rocky to piss off, because he was doing math or occupied with the kids or simply because he wanted to be left alone. Rocky would go, but he would always come back, too, like the world’s smiling-est boomerang, like an unlucky penny. Nothing Mordecai did was ever enough to get rid of him, not permanently, at least. 

It’s confusing. For all his strangeness, Rocky’s certainly not short on options. Mordecai recalls every young man and woman that stopped to flirt with him at the diner, the foreign-language-speaking tenants who watched him come and go from work with giggles and blushes Rocky didn’t notice, but Mordecai did. Even now, people flock to him. He’s attractive, he’s smiling, he’s playing Vivaldi in a manner much more befitting of a seasoned pro than a twenty-four-year-old hood. Mordecai doesn’t understand it.

Toward sundown, Rocky hops off the bench, stowing the instrument in its case. “Well, that was a bust, but at least this park is a hot spot for dough. I used to come here every day when you were up in St. Joe’s— used to play for you in your room, too. But I reckon you don’t remember any of that.”  Mordecai doesn’t say anything. “Are you hungry?” No reply. “Come on.”

They set out. Rocky chatters about nothing. Mordecai lets him go on and on. It starts to rain. Rocky takes his hand and pulls him under an awning. Beside them, there’s a cat selling apples, and across the street there’s a payphone. Rocky fishes in his pocket for a dime. “I’m gonna ring St. Louis again. Maybe get some better answers.”

Mordecai isn’t listening; he’s looking at their hands. Rocky tries to get him to say something. “You want an apple? I can get one for you.” In lieu of a response, Mordecai gives him an unexpected kiss on the cheek. He’s surprised at first, but then he laughs. “Why, that’s uncharacteristically—”

Before he can say “sweet” or “affectionate” or whatever stupid, irritating thing he’d been about to say, Mordecai leans in and kisses him on the mouth, partly to shut him up, but mostly because he wants to. To his annoyance, Rocky draws back. “Hey,” he protests. “What are you doing?” Mordecai looks at him, raises a brow, and Rocky is silent, words failing him for once in his life. After a moment, as the rain comes down and a car rolls past and the streetlamp flickers over their heads, Mordecai kisses him again, and this time, Rocky doesn’t pull back.

 

*

 

They spend the night in a motel. Granted, it isn’t the most cost effective decision, but it’s worth it to wake up in each other’s arms. They get dressed and trudge to the front desk, and as Mordecai settles up, Rocky drops a dime in the payphone. At this point the afterglow is still lingering, but Ivy’s words, thrown like a curveball almost before he has the chance to tell her it’s him, send shivers down his spine, a troubling sensation that makes everything else disappear.

“Calvin’s back,” she says. “He rang me up from Ohio. He’s hurt bad, but he won’t talk to me. Can you come?”


	16. Nuisance

Ivy gives them the where and when, and they arrive the following night. At first, Rocky isn’t sure they have the right address— a large, expensive house out in Affluence, Missouri— but, upon answering the door, Ivy explains that it’s her ex-boyfriend’s family’s place. “They’re out of town, and I know where they keep the spare key.”

Calvin throws himself into Rocky’s arms before he can cross the threshold. There are tears in his eyes. “Hey, now.” Rocky holds him steady. “What’s wrong?” He catches sight of Calvin’s injured hand, and his eyes widen, his tone falling to a horrified hush. “Jeepers creepers.” 

Calvin sinks down to his knees, clinging to Rocky’s trench coat, and he and Mordecai have to lift him up and drag him back inside. He collapses on the love seat in the parlor. As Rocky sits beside him, rubbing his back, Ivy explains the situation the best she can. “Something happened, but I can’t drag it out of him. He just keeps getting more and more upset. He won’t let me see his hand.”

Mordecai, meanwhile, is confused. “I beg everyone’s pardon, but I thought we were here to capture a dangerous criminal. Where’s McMurray?” 

Calvin sniffles and looks at him, raising a hand. “I’m McMurray.”

“But you’re just a child.” 

“What does he mean, ‘capture?’” Ivy shoots Rocky a suspicious look, and, with a sigh, Rocky proceeds to explain. “No,” she says immediately. “We’re not trading Calvin. They’ll kill him.” 

“I know, I know.” Rocky stands and starts to pace. “I just need to think of a plan. There’s a way out of this, I know there is, I just have to—” 

“Rocky.” Calvin looks at him with those big, sad, guilt-tripping eyes, stopping him dead in his tracks. “Are they going to kill me?” Rocky assures him he would never let that happen, but Calvin isn’t reassured. “I’m sorry.” He buries his head in his hands. “This is all my fault.”

The house falls silent but for the sound of his tears. Rocky feels dazed. Everyone is looking at him for answers, but he doesn’t have any. “Listen,” he starts to say, but his words are cut short by a knock at the door. Every set of ears perks, and Ivy mutters, “oh, fiddlesticks, they must be home early.” But Rocky has gone rigid as a statue, and he exchanges glances with Calvin as Mordecai voices the thought on all three of their minds. “Why would they be knocking on their own front door?”

It’s silent. Then Ivy gasps, “sweet Sally” and Calvin leaps to his feet as the doorknob is blown off in three consecutive shots, with a BAM, BAM, BAM and the splintering of wood. Three men enter the room, dressed in black suits with marigold brooches, and Art is at the head of them, grinning like he’s won the lottery. “Honey,” he sings. “I’m home.” Rocky seizes Calvin’s wrist and stands in front of him protectively, but with a gesture from Art the big, muscular hood on his left steps forward to break them apart, throwing Rocky to the floor and lifting a screaming, kicking Calvin off of his feet. Rocky scrambles back up. 

“Put him down!” 

“Sweetheart.” Art greets him like an old friend. “Long time, no see— not even a phone call. It’s funny. I could’ve sworn I told you to drop me a line as soon as you located McMurray, but instead, you make me follow you all the way out here to—” he breaks off, glancing around— “hey, this is a nice place. You live here, doll?” He grins at Ivy, who picks up a sofa cushion and runs towards him, raising it over her head as if to beat him with it. 

“Let him go!”

Art snaps his fingers. The second hood seizes her. She screams, and Calvin fights with fresh hysteria. “Let her go! Let her go!” 

“Shut up!” Art raises his pistol as if to strike, but Rocky seizes his arm and hits him in the face with all his might. Art reels back, his lip bleeding; bolstered by success, Rocky draws back his fist to strike again, but the first hood seizes him and holds him immobile. Art dusts himself off, wipes his mouth, but hasn’t quite recovered before Mordecai attacks him. “Ah, there he is,” Art says, dodging a nasty blow or two with a malevolent smile. “The psychopath.” As he says it, he lifts his pistol to aim straight at Mordecai’s face, stopping him dead. “I’m going to enjoy this.” 

“No!” Rocky has to scream to be heard over his cousin and Ivy. “Art, please! Please, don’t hurt him!” 

“Quiet, sweetheart. Daddy has to kill the psychopath. He’s nothing but a nuisance.” 

“No! Please, he has amnesia— he’s harmless! I swear!”

There’s a tense moment as Art and Mordecai stare each other down. Though Mordecai is certain he’s about to die, he’s not afraid, and he lets his gaze say so. Art seems to get the message. After a long moment, he sighs. “Y’know what?” Rocky is sickened to receive a coy head tilt and wink. “I’ll tell you what. Since you asked so nicely, I’ll do you a little favor. I’ll let the guy live. Okay? I’ll let your boyfriend live.”

Art goes to the phone. Dials and holds it to his ear. Calvin and Ivy are still screaming and, held at gun point, Mordecai can’t make any moves, but he exchanges looks with Rocky, hoping to reassure him. _Everything is going to be okay. I promise._ He thinks Rocky understands. 

Art covers one ear with his hand. “Hello...? Yeah, hey, it’s me! Yeah, I’m calling about those kids.”

Mordecai’s heart skips a beat. He can only assume Art is about to follow through on their deal— after all, he has Calvin, and there wasn’t anything else he wanted. But he has a deep, harrowing dread that turns out not to have been for nothing when Art shouts, “I need you to execute them. Yes, all of them. Kill the baby first— drown it in a bathtub or something.” There’s a pause, and he scowls. “I don’t give a fuck if it makes you uncomfortable—”

Mordecai lunges at Art as Rocky starts pleading afresh, his words lost beneath the screams of the others. Art doesn’t so much as glance his way, and in response to Mordecai he simply fires a shot into his shoulder, sending him reeling back, his blood splattering the clean hardwood as he falls, his ears ringing with Calvin’s manic screams, Ivy’s piercing shrieks, Rocky’s desperate but vain attempts at fast-talking, and Art shouting into the telephone that their beloved children be killed, because he’s a liar, a sadist, a scumbag, and Mordecai was an idiot not to have known it from the start.

After he hangs up the phone, after he gestures to his associates, bellowing, “get them in the fucking van, now,” Art cuffs Mordecai to the radiator. Then, with a grin, a wink, and a “so long, pal,” he turns away, tail swishing, indifferent to the deafening silence and seismic damage he leaves in his wake. 


	17. Missives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another confusing chapter, featuring the song “Kitchen Door” by Wolf Larsen for no reason whatsoever.
> 
> Enjoy!

Rocky tries the trapdoor. It’s locked, of course. He can’t do much with his hands tied together, but he kneels down anyway, examining what he’s working with. Ivy stands over him, watching. “You don’t have anything to pick the lock.”  

“Give me a hair clip.” 

“I don’t have any.” 

“Freckle, your girlfriend is a wet blanket.” Silence replies to him. He turns around. “Freckle?” But the attic is empty aside from himself and Ivy. “Oh, right.” 

“They took him an hour ago. You’re losing your mind.” Ivy puts her face in her hands. “And so am I. They must’ve killed him by now.” Rocky doesn’t answer. He stares at the lock as if trying to think of a way past it, but nothing comes to mind. “What if they’re torturing him?” 

“No.” Rocky stands up and starts to circle the room for the eightieth time, looking for something, anything that could help break them out. “They’re doing this because of Asa. No doubt they just want to kill him— blood for blood and all that. I mean, it’s not like he has any useful information.” 

“...Yeah. You’re probably right.” She sits down on the bed, watching him. There’s a brief silence and so many things she can say to break it, many of them accusing. It’s his fault, after all, that Calvin’s going to die. If it wasn’t for him, Calvin wouldn’t have been anywhere near organized crime. But in the face of his anxiously flicking tail and twitching ears, his stubborn refusal to accept defeat, and the unnatural silence that shows how worried he is, she just can’t bring herself to say it. “Are you okay?” 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“They killed all those little kids.”

Rocky doesn’t answer. He presses an ear to a section of the wall. “This old shack is falling apart,” he mutters thoughtfully. “If we can break through the ceiling, we can get out onto the roof. Then we can hotwire their vehicle, rescue my cousin, and blow this detestable, deteriorating dump.” 

“I can’t believe you adopted.” Ivy isn’t listening. “What were their names?” 

He ignores the question. “Look around for something heavy.” All they have is the rickety bed and a few rotting, empty crates. “This godawful, second-rate excuse for an attic.” Rocky kneels down, yelling into the floor. “I’ll best you yet, you abhorrent, abominable, atrocious—” 

“Rocky.” However much she tries, she’s not able to quiet his yelling for a few more minutes. The house must be empty, because no one from downstairs comes to shut him up. When he’s done, he falls flat on his back and closes his eyes. 

“O attic,” he mumbles under his breath. “Thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle.” Ivy crawls over to him, patting his head gingerly.  

“Aw, c’mon. Don’t give up yet. We just barely got here.” 

“What’s the point? They’ve taken my cousin for a ride. And if Mordecai doesn’t bleed to death, that family is gonna find him chained to their radiator and have him locked in the clink. He’s gonna do life if they don’t give him the chair.” 

“Oh.” Ivy hadn’t thought of that. “Well, I’m sure that’s not—” 

“And my daughter is dead.” He puts his hands to his face. “They killed my daughter.” 

“Daughter?”

“She was so beautiful— going on four months.” 

“You have a baby?” Ivy doesn’t believe him. 

“Had.” 

“Hooey.” 

He looks at her, and, to her relief, he has the slightest trace of a smile. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Girls don’t like addle-brained, pyromaniacal bootleggers.” 

“They like poetry.” 

“Oh, yeah? Who is she? Someone I know?” 

“Betty.” 

“Oh, Betty.” Ivy pictures the quiet-mannered orderly from St. Mary’s. “I remember her.” 

Rocky sits up, wiping his eyes, the scratchy rope brushing his face. “She died in childbirth.” He’d meant to stop crying, to get back to his plan, but as the words leave his mouth he knows it’s useless. His eyes well up again and overflow, and he puts his head in his lap. Ivy doesn’t know what to do. She hesitates, then puts her arms around him. 

 

*

 

January 30, 1928

Dearest Freckle, 

With any luck this missive will find you in good health. Unfortunately I must have no luck at all, as I still don’t know whereabouts you’re hiding these days, and Ivy’s either lying (the wee she-devil), or you really haven’t told her. I attest to the latter; I know you don’t want to put her in danger. Still, it’d be nice to know if you were safe, or even still alive. 

Love, Rocky

 

*

 

March 10, 1928

To The Birthday Boy,

Golly, it’s hard to believe you’re nineteen. I remember when I was that age— [on cold blue nights, in empty box cars, riding a freight train’s solitary whale away from Nebraska’s Depression-shrunken dreams and withered farms— nothing left but belief in possibilities](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YfFhxA2JFOA)...

 

*

 

April 3, 1928 

Dearest Insurgent, 

Mordecai and I have moved to Springfield, IL, a worthy location. No reason— just fancied a change of scenery. Also, unrelated, there was an incident of sorts at St. Joseph’s, of the stabbing variety, if I understand correctly. It seems Mordecai’s killer instincts haven’t vanished along with his memories, but at least we don’t have to worry about getting offed in the night, either by vengeful marigolds or down-on-their-luck muggers. Also, I am now short one (1) violin.

Warmest wishes,

Rocky

  

*

 

June 1, 1928

Dearest Freckle, 

It seems fate has stirred the embers of my life yet again. I must confess it came as a mild surprise. I never thought I’d see her again. If you recall (you had a pretty bad fever at the time, so maybe not) Mordecai blackmailed her into leaving unnanounced. Turns out she’s been here for a while. Our daughter is named Anastasia— not my first choice, but it’s hard to turn down a lady’s dying wish, particularly when she happens to be the mother of your child. But I don’t know. I think I’ll call her Bluebird, as a nickname. What do you think? You can be her godfather— as soon as you get home, that is. 

Love, Rocky

P.S. Her eyes look just like mine.

 

*

 

July ?? I didn’t check the calendar, 1928

Darlingest Freckle,

This diner gig isn’t half bad. Mordecai’s here a lot with the kids. He’s been recovering much better since we left St. Joseph’s, and can remember my name now. He doesn’t know Bluebird is mine. I haven’t told him yet.

I wish you could see her. When are you coming home? ~~Are you still alive? Please don’t be dead.~~  I’ll see you soon. We’ll catch up.

Yours most faithfully, 

Rocky

 

*

 

August 18, 1928

You know, if you really tilt your head and squint, sometimes Mordecai actually looks happy. He likes teaching math to the kids. They think he’s a regular Einstein. I wonder if they remind him of his family back in New York? I wish I could write to them, but I don’t have their mailing address, and he doesn’t remember it (or them, anyway). 

Love, Rocky

 

*

 

September 1, 1928

Dearest Freckle-lad, 

It’s getting close to the anniversary. Where are you? I’m running out of places to hide these letters. Be honest with your cousin— are you dead? If you are, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.

Please call Ivy. 

Love, Rocky

P. S. Do you know any good words that rhyme with “ossified?”


	18. Seventeen

“You joined Valerian, didn’t you? Very impressive. And you managed to evade us for almost a year.” Art checks his watch. “Point of fact, it’ll have been a year tomorrow. Eh.” He shrugs. “Too bad.” 

Calvin is silent. Art nods to one of his thugs. They put a noose around Calvin’s neck, and he panics and starts to fight, but it’s no use. They sling the other end of the rope over a high branch as Art paces thoughtfully. “What was that fella’s nickname? Somethin’ to do with ‘weasel’ or ‘weaselface?’” He pauses, reflecting. “Yeah, that was it. Weaselface. And the other one, eh, Fish. I gotta say, you may not look like a hardened killer, but your track record would beg to differ. That’s why I’m not gonna be taking any chances today.” 

Calvin’s eyes are wild. Art draws close to him, frowning. “Jeez, calm down, would ya? Why do you always have to get so riled up? Try and take a few deep breaths. In and out— like that. Can you do that?” Calvin tries to lash out at him, but is held back. “Hey, what are you, anyway? Seventeen, eighteen?” 

“Nineteen.” 

“Nineteen,” Art repeats. “Interesting. Not a lot of hoods that age can brag seven murders. Matter of fact, not a lot of hoods that age at all. I’m seventeen, in case you were wondering.” Calvin’s manic look fades a little in confusion. “Yeah. Interesting, isn’t it? You and I have a lot in common. We both like to kill, and we both started young. But you wanna know the one difference between you and me, McMurray? I’m not swinging from a rope.” He steps back, nods at his men, and Calvin finds himself pulled off the ground by the neck, legs kicking uselessly, unable to scream, unable to breathe. Art pulls a candy out of his pocket and sticks it in his mouth. He stands there idly sucking it and swatting away mosquitoes for a good few minutes before signaling that Calvin should be let down. As he collapses, coughing and wheezing, Art begins to pace again. 

“I wish there were more hoods my age,” he muses. “Those voodoo siblings aren’t even close. And they’re creepy. Having to work with them, oh, my god, it’s a nightmare, let me tell you. This one time— oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, again.”

Calvin has scarcely caught his breath before they hoist him back up. Art cranes his neck, looking at him. “Your face is really red,” he remarks. “Woof. Shouldn’t have gotten involved in this business, pal. Should’ve stayed in college. Gotten a law degree. Worked in an office. For the treasury, perhaps. Wouldn’t that be ironic? I guess no matter which way you slice it, Prohibition makes this nation run. Couldn’t you just die? Let him down, Gaear.”

Calvin hits the ground with a graceless _whump_ and rolls over onto his back, gasping horrifically. Art nudges him with the tip of his shoe. “Look at you. You were doing so well. Really coulda gotten away— I mean that. But then you had to go and stab those Valerians in the back. Why did you do it?” Calvin is struggling to draw breath, but Art grows quickly impatient. “Hello? I’m asking a question.”

“Couldn’t... do it,” Calvin chokes.

“Do what?”

His voice is like sandpaper. “They were gonna hurt people.”

Art is surprised. Then he throws his head back and laughs. He turns away, waving his hand, and as they pull Calvin into the air a third time, he’s still laughing, like he’s never heard anything funnier.

 


	19. Shakespeare

It’s eight days before the abuse is over. “One day for every kill,” Art said, “plus one for good luck. Just payback, wouldn’t you agree?” Calvin is taken away each night, and each morning they bring him back covered in fresh lacerations. The first night, his neck is as red from rope burn as if it had been branded. The bruises that form over the next few days are hellacious just to look at; Rocky can only imagine how they must feel. They employ other methods of torture, as well, involving water, sharp objects, fire, and, on one occasion, ice. Sometimes, from upstairs, they can hear his cries of pain, but, other than sound, nothing can get in or out of the attic while the trapdoor is locked. 

Every morning goes the same way. They wait for Calvin to be brought back. When he is, Rocky checks his pulse and heartbeat. “Still breathing. Just unconscious.” Ivy holds his head in her lap, stroking his face. She’s very careful not to hurt him. His body is riddled with bruises, cuts, and burns— every bad thing she can imagine— but it’s hard to see just where, in the dark.  

On the eighth morning, Art asks for Rocky. They bring him down, unresisting and unrestrained, and push him into a chair. Art sits across from him, his feet up on the table, one of his stupid candies on his tongue. 

“We need to talk,” he says. Rocky doesn’t say anything. “Enjoying the attic?” Silence. “Wanna know what we did to your cousin last night?” Art grins. “Jones— uh, the gentleman on your left, there— he’s an expert in pain. ...No? Fine. Just remember— you can ask at anytime. I’d be more than happy to give you the details.” 

Rocky jumps to his feet, knocking his chair over. “Thou art unfit for any place but hell, thou lump of foul deformity, starvelling, eel-skin, dried neat’s-tongue, bull’s-pizzle, tailor’s-yard, vile standing tuck!” He tries to climb onto the table, the better to reach Art so he can strangle him, but he’s held at bay, and Art doesn’t so much as flinch. “A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality! Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon, thou subtle, perjur’d, false, disloyal wretch!”

Art lets him go on and on like this for some time, waiting for him to run out of nonsense words, but it seems he has an infinite supply. He waves a hand and the bodyguard named Jones smacks Rocky in the back of the head to shut him up. Art stands. “You seem upset. Is this about the kids? ‘Cause it might interest you to know they’re alive.”

“Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile.” 

“You don’t believe me? It’s true. The Savoys let them go— against my wishes, no less, but what could I do?” He pauses. “Those voodoo freaks ignored my instructions. If Asa were still here, he would’ve let them off the hook. But the new night manager isn’t futzing around.” Another thoughtful pause. “Anyway. Your precious children are alive.” 

“Droning, dog-hearted coxcomb.” 

“I’m talking to you. Can you answer normally?”

“Poisonous, bunch-backed toad.” 

“Shut up unless you want a piece of what your cousin’s been getting.” Rocky isn’t deterred. Art raises his voice. “Shut up or I’ll have your cousin beaten six ways to Sunday.” Rocky shuts up. Then, to Art’s befuddlement, he smiles. Art stares at him, vaguely unnerved, then sighs, putting his face in his hands. “I’m sick and tired of dealing with you two harps. You’re both crazy.” 

“It’s in the blood.” 

“Listen, I don’t have all day. I’m just telling you what’s about to happen. ‘Cause Marigold has been trying to recruit your little torpedo up there for the past six months, and now we’re finally getting somewhere.” 

“Recruit,” Rocky repeats, his smile fading slightly in confusion. “He would never agree to that.” 

“He doesn’t have a choice. But he says he can’t do it without you. So— congrats. You’re hired.” 

“Wait. What?” 

“So try and behave and we’ll bring you back to St. Louis within the week. Hell, we’ll even let the princess go— eh, after her daddy pays us, that is. Sound good? Good. All right, go back upstairs. Work on your poetry some more.” 

“Wait—” 

“And no funny business.” 

They put him back in the attic. Ivy looks up at him expectantly. “What’s going on?” 

“I think they’re taking us back to St. Louis.” 

“What? Why?”

Rocky’s thoughts race as he looks down at Calvin. He’s no longer unconscious, from the looks of it, just sleeping, curled on his side, head nestled in Ivy’s lap. He almost looks peaceful.

“I’m not sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-insults/


	20. No

Ivy has been missing for close to a month, and the reason why is no mystery. Everyone had always known she was the running-off-with-her-boyfriend type, whether or not they approved of it, which Viktor didn’t, and he’ll strangle the McMurray boy if he ever gets the chance, but, at the time of her disappearance, Ivy was neither his daughter, nor under his control. If she wasn’t going to listen to him, there was nothing he could do. She’s completely hot-headed, determined, and stubborn, as befits a young woman raised by ruthless gangsters during the rollicking Jazz Age, but sometime between when she’d first met him and now, she’d made Viktor care about her. He doesn’t know how. No doubt it has something to do with his estranged daughter, with misdirected guilt and uncontrollable projection, but it hardly matters. Either way, she’s gone. She left the day of the phone call. 

“It’s Calvin,” she’d told him, unable to contain a smile, which perhaps she should have, given the gravity of the situation. “He got arrested in Columbus. They’re keeping him prisoner in a hospital. Isn’t it grand? I’m going to see him again!” At this point she’d seized his hand, pulling him. “Come on!” But, to her surprise, Viktor had held his ground. 

“No.” 

“Now’s not the time for games, Viktor.” They’d looked at each other, a moment of silence lapsing, and her smile had faded. “I get it— you don’t like him. That’s fine. But we can’t just leave him there, can we? They’re gonna put him in the big house. Are you just gonna stand by and let that happen?” 

“Yes.”

A dreadful silence had fallen. He wonders whether, if he had broken it to her more gently— that it would be far better for all of them, Calvin included, if he was locked up— she may have written to him later, just to assure him they were all right. He doesn’t know. He can only assume she wouldn’t have. The word “doublecrosser” flung at him with betrayal and tears had hurt, but, for all the ways in which she was misguided, he supposed that much was true. 

It didn’t matter; it couldn’t be helped. You had to be the bad guy, sometimes, to protect the people you love— in theory, anyway. How was he supposed to know she would go so far as to run away? Women are simply unmanageable. He tears the calendar off the wall, dropping it into the trash. Mitzi watches him stalk away. “What’s eating you?” 

He growls in response, and she rolls her eyes, proving his point.

 

*

 

The anniversary, September 28th, comes and goes, prompting Viktor to wonder for the millionth time what ever became of Mordecai. He hates Rocky more than ever now, but, at the same time, it makes him wonder— or at least, the question drives him crazy, and he can’t get rid of it no matter how hard he tries— what Mordecai can possibly see in him, in a dirt-poor, stick-shaped, recklessly smiling hoodlum, five years younger than him on top of everything else— almost twenty years younger than Viktor. Didn’t Mordecai prefer older men, men of a much less noodly constitution? It was what Viktor had always assumed, what had always made sense, what had always seemed true, but not anymore. He doesn’t understand it.

No, that’s a lie. He understands all too well. But the joke, in the end, is on Mordecai. His wretched attempts to escape the darkness, the tragedy, the pain, the bloodshed, the chaos that has been not just his career, not just his love life, but everything he’s ever known since the day he was born, have officially wound down to nothing, and the fact that he thought, even for a moment, that Rocky could have provided some kind of respite from all that— just because he’s young and inexperienced and ditzy and foolish and happy, everything Viktor isn’t, down to the last molecule— is both completely ludicrous and something Viktor easily could have disproved, corroborated by a long list of reasons. But Mordecai hadn’t confided in him. And where they stand now, all of them, is the result. 

So Viktor will kill Rocky, too, if he ever gets the chance. Then he’ll bury them both, the god-forsaken Irish cousins, side by side. 

 

*

 

In late October, Ivy comes back. Calvin isn’t with her, a bad sign, but Viktor doesn’t ask, and Ivy doesn’t tell. In fact, and most unusually, she doesn’t speak a word at all. He determines she must be furious with him. Later the same day, her father’s people come to take her home to Kansas City, so, aside from one tense, wordless reunion, it’s almost like she never came back at all. The word is that she was kidnapped and ransomed by... somebody. He wishes he knew. There would be hell to pay if he did. Part of him thinks, why not find out? Whoever they are, they’re still out there. They got what they wanted— a considerable sum of money. He could take his shotgun and get it back— exact revenge on her behalf. If only that would be enough to make her forgive him, everything would be so simple.

Mitzi is watching him. Part of him wishes she’d leave him alone to sulk, but she doesn’t. 

“You should talk to her. I know you’re not good with words, but she’ll give you an earful if you let her, whether or not she’s upset. You can work it out from there.” 

“No.”

Mitzi sighs and rolls her eyes. “She may not be your daughter, Viktor, but you can’t fool yourself into thinking you don’t care.” 

He doesn’t say anything, and Mitzi gives up, which is fine by him.

 

*

 

Up until October 31st, 1928, Viktor had been certain things couldn’t get much worse. When he hears machine-gunfire, he drops what he’s doing and races towards the sound, down into the limestone caverns. It’s slow going because of his knees, and he curses Mordecai, for the millionth time, for being a sociopath.

Mitzi is on the floor, crying in a manner most unbefitting a gangster’s widow, the tommy gun in her hands (better befitting, but the business end is dangerously close to her head, and he quickly takes it away). The bar is destroyed. He helps her into a chair, drags the reason out of her, but it turns out not to be that complicated. Lackadaisy is out of resources. They’re going under, and fast; if nothing changes, they’re doomed. 

“I just don’t know what to do,” she sobs, and it’s around that point Viktor realizes she’s half seas over. He waits with her until she calms down, which is the same as waiting until she falls asleep, then picks her up and carries her upstairs, holding her as gently as possible in spite of how his knees complain; the difficulty makes him wince. He sets her down on the office couch, where she curls up, dead to all the world, her curvaceous, sleeping form almost so deceptively innocent as to fool even him, but he knows what her facade hides. He’s known her a long time, Mitzi. 


	21. Doublecrosser

The office phone rings. Viktor stares at it for a long time before answering. “Áno.”

“Viktor?” 

Viktor’s eye narrows. He doesn’t say anything. He knows that voice just as much as he hates it.

“Viktor, it’s Rocky. I need your help.”

Viktor hangs up. 

 

*

 

Mordecai’s glasses, broken forever ago, are on Viktor’s dresser. Rocky picks them up precisely as the door opens. He whirls around and they lock eyes; a single, tense moment passes before Viktor roars and lunges at him. Heart in his mouth, Rocky drops to the floor, scrambles under the bed, out from under the other side, and toward the door. He makes it into the living room before Viktor catches him and throws him, like a sack of rice, back into the bedroom. His shoulder cracks painfully against the hardwood. He clutches it, crawling backwards. “Wait, wait—” 

Viktor throws the radio at him. Rocky dodges just in time. It smashes to pieces against the wall next to his head. Before he can escape, Viktor grabs him by the throat and lifts him up, struggling and choking. “Wait!”

Viktor doesn’t say anything, just squeezes. Rocky kicks, hits, and claws him, anything to try and escape, but Viktor is like a stone pillar, and Rocky is quickly running out of air. In a last attempt, he rasps, “Mordecai... he’s... in—”

Viktor tightens his grip. Rocky’s body jerks unnaturally, then goes slack. He waits a moment or two, then drops him to the floor, where he lies still, eyes closed. Then he sighs.

 

*

 

Rocky comes to, gasping, sputtering, and dripping with water. He tries to reach up, but his limbs are fastened securely to a chair. Viktor stands in front of him, holding an empty pitcher. To Viktor’s irritation, Rocky, after shaking his head to rid the droplets from his eyes, has the gall to smile. “Vinegar! It’s been an age. I missed you. Did you miss me?” 

Viktor rolls his eye and turns away. As he lights the stove, he’s aware of Rocky testing his restraints. They’re uncomfortably tight. “Is this necessary?”

Viktor doesn’t say anything. The apartment lapses into silence. Rocky breaks it with a nervous grin. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” 

Viktor hasn’t decided. As the coffee comes to a boil, he shuts off the stove. Then, almost as an afterthought, he sticks the pitcher under the tap and fills it again. Rocky closes his eyes tightly as the cold water hits his face. “Hey!” He splutters and coughs, shaking his head again. “Dammit, I’m awake, already!”

Viktor growls and turns away from him. Rocky watches him anxiously, craning his neck. “Viktor, come on. What is this?” 

Viktor fills a mug with coffee and slams it down on the table. Then he tugs Rocky’s lapel, tilting the marigold brooch so the light glints off of it. “What is this?” 

“Oh, uh, that.” Viktor can see Rocky forming his sentences very carefully. “It’s not what you think.” 

“You double cross,” Viktor says. Rocky is silent. “You try to steal.” Rocky is confused until Viktor shows him Mordecai’s broken spectacles. He hurries to explain. 

“Oh, no. I didn’t come here for that, if that’s what you’re thinking. No, I wanted to talk to you. I need a favor.” He flinches as Viktor seizes his neck yet again. 

“Only favor vill be kill you vithout pain.” 

“Easy on the windpipe,” Rocky rasps. “Gee, you really have some anger issues.” Viktor lets him go, and relief floods him. “Anyway, you can’t kill me, not if you wanna know about Mordecai.” 

“Tell me first. Then I vill kill you.” 

Rocky doesn’t like the sound of that. The apartment lapses into another silence as Viktor drinks his coffee, black, of course. Rocky has begun to sweat. He huffs, “look, I’m sorry I broke in here, but you weren’t taking my calls.” Silence. Rocky braces himself for whatever repercussions the truth might bring. “I lost Mordecai. No one’s seen or heard from him in weeks. I can’t look for him because Marigold is watching me, so I’m gonna need you to do it.” Silence. “I can tell you where to look, if you—”

“How you lose?” 

“How did I lose him?” Rocky hadn’t been expecting that one. He thinks about it. “I don’t know. Everything was going so well. I guess one or two things just caught up to us.” 

“Vhere is Mordecai?” 

“Aw, see? I knew you cared.” Viktor gives him a deadly stare, the one-eyed dagger, and he grins feebly, terrified. “I... I’m not sure, but he was wounded when we last saw him. He can’t have gone far. I would start in De Soto.” Viktor gets his coat. Rocky watches him, frowning. “You’re not just going to leave me here, right?” He gets no reply. “If I’m not back at Marigold soon, and I mean soon, Viktor, they’ll kill me.” 

“Good.” And Viktor leaves him there, dripping wet, arms and legs immobile. He utters a Shakespearean curse. 

 

* 

 

Calvin treats his burn with ointment and wraps it in fresh bandages. Glancing into the mirror, he’s relieved to see the lacerations are starting to heal, even the really bad ones on his neck. He lowers his gaze, pushing away the dark memories, and puts on his shirt, jacket, tie, and brooch. A moment passes. He stares numbly at his reflection. It feels so strange to have been caught, the thing he’d been dreading for the last year of his life, and survived. He was so sure he was going to die; instead, he’s working for Marigold.

Maybe it would have been better to die.

The window opens and a familiar voice jars him from his thoughts. “Saints be praised, it’s a beautiful night.”

“Rocky.” Calvin goes to him as he clambers in from the fire escape. “Where were you? I was worried.” 

“I dropped by Viktor’s place.” Rocky shuts the window and locks it, then, turning around, looks Calvin over and smiles. “Lookit you. I always said you clean up nice. How’s the hand?” 

“Fine.” Calvin holds still as Rocky straightens his tie for him. “Why are you all wet?” Rocky tries to think of an excuse, but Calvin cuts him off. “You have to change. They’ll punish you.” Marigold loves finding arbitrary reasons to punish them, just to keep them in line, but, at the very moment, Rocky can’t bring himself to care. If they insist on tormenting him, he figures he may as well give them a reason.

“Look, don’t worry about it. Just come on.” Rocky steers him out into the hall, where Art is already waiting. “What? We’re ready,” Rocky says, grinning, in response to his pointed look, but Art doesn’t say anything. He just rolls his eyes and turns away, gesturing for them to follow. 


	22. Marigold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot of gratuitous pain. I’ll get back to the plot and what Viktor is doing next, I swear. 
> 
> (aaargh this story is so long)
> 
> My goal is to have everything wrapped up by chapter 30 and end the series. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Art nudges Rocky. “What’s wrong with your shoulder?” Rocky lies and says nothing. In return, Art shoves him right where it hurts, cackling when he gasps in pain. “You liar.”

 

*

 

Calvin is sweating. They know he’s the one who murdered Asa; they know a lot of things about him, far more than he’d like.

“I heard he can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.” 

They’d been expecting something different, a bit more exciting, anything other than the mild-mannered Mick they end up stuck with. Their disappointment manifests in unpleasant ways, later on, but in the beginning, they leave him alone; they know he’s deadly, in spite of what he may look like. They’ve heard tell of his dark side, and, after a few jobs together, they get to witness it firsthand. It’s enough to stave them off for a while.

 

*

 

The cousins share a room. At night, they get their hands dirty. Calvin hates Marigold, hates being forced to use his sick, twisted skill set in their name, but thank god Rocky’s with him; his sharp wit and cunning (and, admittedly, his craziness) are the only things keeping them alive these days.

When the sun is high in the sky and Calvin can’t sleep, Rocky stays up with him, talks to him, the two of them snuggled in the same bed just like when they were kids, when Calvin used to have nightmares. He doesn’t have a lot of them anymore. One can’t have dreams, good or bad, if one can’t sleep.

 

*

 

Art pins Rocky against the wall, gripping his collar, and kisses him. He’s warm and his mouth tastes like candy— no mystery there. Rocky tries to fight, but Art holds him fast. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs, “relax.”

 

*

 

Rocky is making pancakes in the kitchen. He is eight. Calvin is three. “More flour,” he says. “More. Break some eggs. Your mom is going to love these.”

As Rocky pours gooey batter into an overheated, overgreased pan, Calvin sticks a fistful of sugar into his mouth. 

 

*

 

The lamp breaks when Calvin hits Art with it. His head starts to bleed. He steps away from Rocky, touches the wound, half in a daze, and scowls at Calvin when his hand comes away red. “You stupid whore.”

 

*

 

“I’ll give you a dollar to get your knees dirty.” Someone grabs Calvin by the shoulder, stuffs the money in his face. They’re laughing. Rocky steps in, hits Calvin’s assailant right in the mouth, just like he did to Art that one time. He’s beaten for his trouble, and although Calvin tries to help him, he’s not as good with his bare hands as he is with a gun. 

He’s surprised when one of the people who shoves him is Rocky. “Run!” he shouts. “Go!” But Calvin can’t bear to leave him alone. Paralyzed, unable to help, yet unable to flee, in the end, he just watches.

 

*

 

Rocky leans down from the stepstool he’s using to reach the stovetop. “You have sugar all over your face, McMurray.” Even when he was little, he used to call Calvin that. He was always a bit precocious, perhaps ironically, given of all the issues he had growing up. Calvin had held still as Rocky scrubbed his face, even though he had no concept of being gentle, not at that age, and it wasn’t pleasant at all. “You silly goose.”

 

*

 

The others, they don’t like Art. They think he’s too young, for one; for another, he’s far too eager. He loves violence. He’s not good at it, not without his bodyguards, but he loves it nonetheless. Enthusiasm was the deciding factor that elevated him to Mordecai’s vacated position; no one else could match Art’s thirst for blood. Unfortunately, talent was just one of the many qualities Mordecai possessed that Art could only dream of (work ethic, manners, conviction, control; the list goes on). As a result, he was outcasted.

“Go back to school” is something he hears a lot. “You little psychopath.”

 

*

 

Rocky often makes mistakes, but he suspects he’ll never know just how to feel about this one. He sees Art being roughed up and, for one reason or another (he thinks of Calvin), his instincts kick in. Art doesn’t thank him afterward, just glowers like a volcano, and Rocky leaves before his anger can manifest as abuse. There’s just no telling, at any given time, what awful thing Art will do next. The fact that he’s a victim (though certainly amusing) doesn’t help at all.

 

*

 

The Savoys are gone. It’s the hottest gossip around. Apparently, they had a few priveleges revoked when they refused to kill the Springfield children, and, in addition, they had been harboring certain reservations about making an enemy of Mordecai, not so much due to fear, but rather because they had once considered him a friend. They were disconcerted to see just what sort of damage they’d done to his mind. A walking travesty like that, with not a memory to speak of, well, he almost would have been better off dead, wouldn’t he? The Savoys were fed up with Marigold. When they left, they claimed the lives of a few of its members. This was part of the reason why Calvin was recruited instead of killed: Marigold was running short on staff.

No one was sent to hunt down the Savoys; no one was foolish enough to think such an endeavor would end well.  

 

*

 

They are more intoxicated than Rocky has ever seen anyone when they force the cousins up against each other, twisting their arms behind their backs and angling their faces in such a way to induce a kiss. Rocky squeezes his eyes shut. Calvin struggles like a madman until someone forces a few drinks down his throat; then they shove his face between Rocky’s legs. Luckily, the level of drunk they are renders them too uncoordinated to do any real damage, but the implications aren’t exactly harmless, and Rocky doesn’t believe, once it’s over, his cousin was left entirely unscathed. 

 

*

 

“Why did you help me?”

Rocky tells Art the truth: he doesn’t know. Art grabs his wrist to stop him from walking away and tells him, completely seriously, “I love you. I’ve loved you since the day we met.” 

And Rocky doesn’t know which of the many things that come to mind he wants to say the most. Pulling free, he gives him the icy mitt and, glancing over his shoulder as he leaves, he may have found the expression on Art’s face immensely funny if it wasn’t for the knowledge that he would pay dearly for it later.

Who is he kidding? He finds it funny, anyway.


	23. Quiet

A truck idles in front of a certain house in De Soto. Viktor had read, in the local newspapers, about a mysterious break-in where nothing was stolen. He knows this is the place where Mordecai was last seen. The question is, where is he now?

He drives around. According to Rocky, Mordecai was badly wounded (for the thousandth time, it seemed). But there are no hospitals in De Soto; in order to receive medical attention, he would have had to walk or hitchhike to the next town. Before Viktor can make it half so far, however, he hears something that makes him pull over and cut the engine. He gets out and stands there, listening, the autumn chill glancing off of his coat, ears twitching as he tries to discern where the sound is coming from. He turns and sets off into the woods, his footsteps making scarcely a sound.

The trees are bare of green and the birds have flown south. In the midst of a clearing, perched on a fallen oak, a woman [plays the violin](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0tD3Jmc96ao) while a small dog naps at her feet. Viktor stops several yards away, silently watching, but she doesn’t seem to notice him until he comes closer, pointing to the battered old instrument engraved with an R, an instrument (to his distaste) he would recognize, by sight or by sound, anywhere.

“Vhere did you get that?”

 

*

 

Mordecai is curled on his side. Pain attacks him in waves. It comes not from his shoulder, which is in the process of healing, but from deep within his soul. His family had been taken away from him and he hadn’t been able to stop it. 

The door creaks open. He doesn’t move. The woman’s dog runs and leaps up onto the bed, and Mordecai can’t find the strength to be annoyed, at least, not until it shoves its wet, snuffling nose in his face and licks him. He scowls, sits up, and tries to inch away, but the dog stays on him, wagging its tail adoringly. “Madam,” he says. “Would you mind restraining your...” Many vile words cross his mind, all of them fitting, in his opinion, but he can’t bring himself to say any of them, not while he’s a guest here, and can still remember his manners. “...pet?”

The woman enters the cottage, hanging up her shawl. “I told you to call me Elizabeth.” She has the violin in her hand. It hurts Mordecai, as usual, to lay eyes on it. Then, to his alarm, someone enters the cottage behind her, a large, burly man in a long coat. Mordecai is immediately on his guard. He wishes he were dressed. He feels like he can’t be taken seriously the way he looks now, less like a dangerous fugitive of the law and more like a child who’d just woken up. He tries to make up for it with a cutting tone. “Who are you?” 

The towering brute doesn’t answer. Mordecai’s vision is too poor to be able to tell, but he thinks he’s staring at him. It makes him uncomfortable. Really, he thinks, how could anyone be so very rude? “Elizabeth, would you be so kind as to introduce me to your acquaintance?” 

“I was going to ask you the same thing. He says he knows you.”

“Oh?” Much to Mordecai’s chagrin, the woman puts Rocky’s violin down, then, taking a hatchet from the corner, makes some transparent excuse about getting more firewood and leaves the two of them alone. Mordecai stares in cold silence at the stranger. He clears his throat and comes closer, reaching into his pocket, and Mordecai stiffens, getting ready to run (you’re not wearing a shirt, he reminds himself; sweat beads on his back). He says, “not a step closer.” The stranger stops. 

“I haff your glasses,” he says. 

“I don’t wear glasses.” 

“They are your glasses. Try. You vill see.”

Mordecai refuses. Viktor puts them down on the table next to the violin. 

 

*  

 

It’s drizzling. The woman sits in the corner, painting a still life. Mordecai had never met a bona fide artist before. He finds her very strange indeed.

He recalls the moment they met. She’d found him wandering, blood-soaked, half alive, in the woods. She hadn’t phoned the police. “My husband was in the business, too,” she explained. “His gang was wiped out in 1925.” She’d dipped a brush in blue paint, focused on the canvas, her voice a thoughtful murmur. “Besides, I don’t have a phone.”

Mordecai goes outside to where Viktor is chopping wood. One swing of his arm does impressive damage, but Mordecai would never admit it intimidates him. He crosses his arms, shoulders hunched against the weather. “Still here, are you?”

Viktor pauses, wiping raindrops out of his eyes. “You mean still here, chopping wood, or still here, living?” 

“I mean, are you still here, sleeping in that godawful truck, refusing to leave me alone?” Mordecai’s tone is biting. “I thought I made myself clear. I don’t know who you are, and I’m not going with you.” 

Viktor goes back to work, speaking between hatchet swings. “You know me.” Mordecai denies it. Viktor reminds him, “you haff brain injury. No memory.”

Mordecai can’t argue that. “Who are you, really?” He listens as Viktor explains himself patiently, not for the first time, even though he knows what response is coming. “I don’t believe you. How did you find me?” Viktor tells him. “You’re a liar. I refuse to listen to any more of this.”

He leaves. Viktor doesn’t follow him. He knows he’ll be back.

 

*

 

A few weeks after Viktor shows up out of nowhere, Mordecai finally consents to try on the glasses. It’s as if a fog is lifted. He spends hours studying the woman’s paintings, unable to believe he’s been staring at them for months and never noticed just how breathtaking they are. 

“Thank you,” he tells Viktor, keeping his eye averted. 

“You’re velcome, little one.”

They go for a walk. Viktor tells him about the past, everything they’ve been through together, the sorrow, the joy, the victories, the violence. He tells him things about himself that he’d forgotten about.

“1920, you come from New York. Strange boy. Dark. Qviet.”

Mordecai listens raptly, not saying a word; he wants to know everything, everything, and Viktor is like a treasure trove of answers. He breaks the silence only once, when the obviousness of the question makes it impossible to ignore. “Did we ever...?” He lets the implication hang in the air, and, although he understands perfectly, Viktor doesn’t say anything. 

 

*

 

The woman doesn’t celebrate Christmas. It passes them by like any other day. She paints the snowy landscape, observing it through the window, as Viktor sits by the fire and Mordecai makes them all tea. It’s nice.


	24. Truck

Mordecai gets up early one morning, careful not to make any noise. Elizabeth is still asleep. The sight of her serene face gives him pause; she’s done so much for him these past few months. Promising himself he’ll find a way to thank her, someday, somehow, he gathers his belongings and slips outside, shutting the door soundlessly.

The snow has melted and the birds and little animals are slowly coming back. He passes tiny sprouts of grass and wildflowers on his way towards the road. Viktor’s truck is idling in its usual spot. He slows down, approaching the driver’s side window, violin case in hand, coat tucked under his arm. Viktor has one hand on the wheel and the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. “Are late.” 

“I didn’t want to wake Miss Elizabeth.” Mordecai puts his belongings in the back, then circles around to the passenger’s side. Viktor reaches across to open the door for him, and he climbs inside. “Thank you.” 

The truck lumbers out into the muddy road, beginning its journey to St. Louis. Mordecai stares out the window. The sky is just turning light and it’s beautiful, but he quickly bores of watching it. He longs for his math book; he supposes it must still be in Springfield. He and Rocky never did go back to those filthy, overcrowded slums. They’d meant to; oh, they’d meant to. He wonders whether the children’s families are mourning or if they’re still holding out hope. The thought of either makes his heart ache. He’ll have to inform them. He dreads making the call. They’re going to hate him forever, and rightly so. Their children’s deaths are on his hands. 

Viktor notices him looking depressed. He wants to break the silence, but he doesn’t know what to say. Mordecai relieves him of the task, murmuring, “I always get these damned unbearable headaches. I think it has something to do with my eye.” 

“Áno,” Viktor says. “Vill hurt sometimes.” 

“What happened to yours?” 

“Vorker strike turn to riot.” He chuckles. “Should see the other guy.” 

Mordecai changes the subject. “This woman we’re going to see... Mrs. May, correct? I’m not so sure she’ll be able to help us.” 

“Ve not go to Miss Mitzi for ask help. Ve go for give help, vhatever she may need.” 

“Why?” Mordecai raises a brow. “Because you owe her husband a debt?” It seemed a bit silly.

“You owe same debt,” Viktor tells him, “vhether you remember or no.” 

Mordecai thinks about it. “Well,” he says. “Marigold is based in St. Louis. Maybe that’s where they’re keeping Rocky.” Viktor doesn’t say anything. “You knew him. Are you going to help me find him?” Silence, which Mordecai interprets as no. “That’s what I thought. What’s the matter? You don’t like him? Well, since we’re on the subject of debts owed, it may interest you to know that Rocky is the only reason I’m still alive.” He’d meant it seriously, but, to his surprise, Viktor laughs. “What’s so funny?” 

“He vill get you killed.” 

“How do you figure?” 

Viktor doesn’t answer. Mordecai turns to stare out the window. It’s quiet for about five minutes until, suddenly, he snaps, “pull over.” 

Viktor doesn’t want to, but Mordecai makes him. He gets out, slamming the door, and retrieves his belongings from the back. Viktor watches with amusement more than concern. “Vhat are you doing, little one?” 

“Thanks for all the help, but your services are no longer required.” 

“Get back in truck.” 

Mordecai shoots him a death glare before turning away. “Goodbye.” He makes it about ten feet before Viktor catches up. 

 _“Blázon.”_  He takes Mordecai’s arm.

“Don’t touch me.” Mordecai tries to pull away, but Viktor is much stronger than he is; in anger, Mordecai hits him with the violin case. Viktor growls,

“No hitting.”

“Then leave me alone.” They tussle, but, hopelessly outmatched, Mordecai loses; the next thing he knows, he’s been tossed like a sack of grain over Viktor’s shoulder. His face turns bright red, his voice rising to a tone just slightly higher than usual. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

Viktor ignores him, carries him back to the truck. Mordecai kicks and claws, but Viktor is undeterred; if anything, he seems to find it all rather funny. He drops Mordecai into the back, as if he really is no more than a sack of grain, and Mordecai sits up, adjusting his glasses, to glare at Viktor’s smug face. “I’m going to kill you.” 

“Try.” 

 

*

 

They arrive in St. Louis at around nightfall. Mordecai is curled up in the passenger’s seat, asleep. Viktor almost can’t help but stare; even with only one eye, Mordecai is every bit as beautiful as he ever was. When Viktor shuts off the engine, Mordecai stirs, stretches and yawns. “At long last. You’re an abhorrent driver, by the way. I suppose it must be the one eye.” 

The irony of the quip isn’t lost on either of them.


	25. Abandoned

Calvin is cleaning his weapon. As of late, he’s been doing so more or less constantly, particularly when he’s bored, almost to an extent that would classify as neurotic. No one pays him any mind; by this point, six months after he’d first joined, they're used to it. 

Rocky is playing poker. When Art comes back from the bar, he sits next to him, much to nobody’s surprise, and leans in to get a look at his hand. Rocky catches what he’s doing and elbows him hard. “Eyes off.” 

“Ow.”

Laughter. At the bar, a black-haired cat is half in the bag with a glass of whiskey in his paw. His buddy is smoking and staring off into the tunnels. “Hey, Rickaby,” he calls, turning his head. “Is it true you and Zorro used to work here?” 

When he says ‘here,’ the cat is obviously referring to Lackadaisy. The place, both upstairs and down, has been abandoned for a while, ever since its last member, Viktor Vasko, left its proprietress in the lurch. A few of Marigold’s members have been using it as a hangout, Rocky and Calvin included. They exchange glances. “That was a long time ago.” Rocky looks back down at his cards and, propping his legs up on the table, tilts his chair back dangerously far. “But, uh, if you really want to know...” 

They clamor excitedly, prompting Rocky to grin even as he’s aware of his cousin rolling his eyes. They both know how much Rocky likes to brag about him, just like they both know how much Calvin wishes he would stop. But “come on,” Rocky had tried to reason, “they love you. You’re a legend. You know what they’ve been calling you lately?” He’d smiled bigger than the moon. “Zorro!”

Calvin didn’t much care to be called Zorro, but it made Rocky happy, so he’d kept his mouth shut. He goes back to cleaning his weapon as Rocky dives into the story, recounting the night Calvin got his gruesome start as one of St. Louis’s most infamous criminals. “He made his first kill right in these caverns. Moonshiners, armed to the teeth, four of them. Saved my life that night. Saved Lackadaisy, too.” They murmur amongst themselves, impressed.

“Three.” 

Everyone’s heads swivel around. It’s the first time many of them have ever heard Calvin speak, but Calvin doesn’t even look up from his weapon. “Three,” he says again. “I only killed three. Viktor got one.” 

“Oh, right.” Rocky remembers, then shrugs, as if it doesn’t much matter. “But still.” 

“Good thing Marigold scooped him up,” one of them says. “This place has been floundering since ‘26.” 

“Ever since that crazy broad offed her husband.” A scar-faced cat lays down his hand. “What was her name?” 

“Mary. No, Misty.” 

“Mitzi,” Rocky says. “Mitzi May.” His smile fades just slightly, but no one notices. They rehash old rumors and theories about how Atlas may have been murdered. It’s a subject no one’s touched in years, but Rocky and Calvin, relics from that vanquished empire, make the intrigue, the mystery, seem fresh. 

“Where’s the dame now?” 

Rocky doesn’t answer, just chews his lip, turning his head to gaze thoughtfully at the limestone wall. “Rickaby.” Someone tries to get his attention. He doesn’t respond. Used to his strange ways, they let it slide. As the conversation moves on to other topics, Calvin flicks his eyes up. Rocky has gone back to their poker game, and his look of concentration, to anyone else, might seem normal, but Calvin knows he only looks like that when he’s troubled. 

 

*

 

Someone follows Calvin into the bathroom. His ears perk when he realizes he’s not alone. No one’s harassed him since the bloodbath on third street about a month ago (a lot of people had died, but no one from Marigold), but he’s cautious anyway. Turning around, he sees that it’s none other than Art. 

“Didn’t you used to have a girlfriend?” Art is wearing that smile Calvin hates. He says nothing in reply. “Aren’t you gay?” Calvin shakes his head wordlessly. “Are you sure?” 

“I’m sure.” 

“They have this stupid nickname for you now. You know I’m not afraid of you, right?” Calvin says nothing. “Just remember— I’m the one who made you what you are. You’d be nothing without me.” 

Calvin knows why he’s doing this. It’s hard not to feel sorry for him, sometimes, for all that he may be a monster. He’s completely, hopelessly, utterly enamored, but Rocky won’t even give him the time of day, wouldn’t do it even to save his own life. And Art takes it out on Calvin most of the time, as if that will change anything. 

A thought strikes him. He hesitates, then says, “give me some candy.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You have candy in your pocket.”

“So?” 

“Give me some.” Calvin doesn’t move a muscle, focusing all of his attention on what he’s trying to do. Sweat is beading on his neck, and he has to remind himself Art can’t tell. “Or, if you want, I’ll just tell Rocky to tell the others to give you a tune-up.”

A long silence lapses. Then Art throws his head back and laughs. “I see. You got yourself a funny nickname, a bit of a reputation, and all of a sudden you think you’re hot shit. Well, I got news for you, pal— you’re goddamn full of it, and I’m calling your bluff.” 

Calvin takes a step towards him, holds out his hand. Their gazes are locked. A long silence passes. Art’s smile fades. 

 

*

 

Rocky feels someone brush his side. He turns to see Calvin. To his surprise, he’s smiling. In genuine befuddlement, Rocky asks, “what’s got you riding high, cousin?” He can’t remember the last time Calvin has smiled, let alone like this, like the happiest fool on earth. 

“Nothing.” 

“What’s in your mouth? Is that candy?” 

“Yes.” 

“Give me some.” 


	26. Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finally did it. I crossed the line. I’m so sorry.
> 
> Alternative explanation: it’s all just a dream

They stand side by side in the Little Daisy cafe. It’s as dark, dusty, and quiet as the grave. 

“Vait here,” Viktor tells him. 

“Where are you going?” 

“Upstairs.”

Mordecai doesn’t much like the idea of being left alone, but Viktor is gone before he can argue. Flicking his tail, he has another look around. There’s a stove. He lights it and starts making tea. Halfway through, a shiver runs down his spine; he turns and sees an old photograph on the wall, its details blurred by a film of dust.

Honestly, how unkempt the place is.

The water boils. He shuts it off. He’s being watched; he can feel it. He looks at the photo again. One of its subjects, a man in a suit he can’t tell whether or not is smiling, had been looking into the camera at the moment the photo was taken. It gives Mordecai the eerie impression he’s staring straight at him. 

He goes over to it and takes it down, though the dust makes his neuroses flare up, and squints at it closely. Viktor is there, arms folded, glaring. Mordecai is there, too. It’s unsettling. For one, he can’t remember ever having stood for this photo; for another, up until now, he’s never seen himself with both eyes.  

 

*

 

In the caverns beneath Little Daisy, the gang is wrapping up their card game, tipping back their last shots, stubbing out their cigarettes on the ornate furniture, because who is there to stop them? Who is there to care?

“Well, gents, I’m plastered.” 

“I’m ready to blouse.” 

“Let’s go. This place gives me the jeebies.” 

 

*

 

Upstairs, the dust is so thick in the air that Viktor has to stifle a sneeze. He limps through the halls and different rooms, the office, the parlor, the boudoir, but there’s no sign of life anywhere, not even a trace. Miss Mitzi must have bounced not long after he did. He curses himself. He should have called her, should have come back sooner; he’d meant to, but Mordecai had distracted him.

 

*

 

Before Mordecai can put the photograph back in its place, he hears a door open just around the corner to his right. Impulsively, he hides, his tail whipping out of sight just as the room fills with people. For an instant he assumes they must be guests leaving the speakeasy; then he hears a familiar voice that makes his heart stop. 

“I’ll bet you anything the woman offed herself.” Art bumps into Rocky intentionally, embarking on his nightly quest to get under his skin. “No husband, no money, not a damn thing left to live for in all the world. Is that what happened?” Rocky doesn’t say anything. “Come on. I know I’m not the only one who’s curious.” 

“Well, she killed her husband,” someone says. “Probably she’s got a hell of a constitution. Who’s to say? Maybe she did kill herself.” 

“Miss Mitzi didn’t commit suicide,” Rocky says carefully. “She sold her engagement ring and skipped town.” 

“You’re lying.” Art cuts in front of Rocky, blocking his path with a smirk on his face. “She’s dead, isn’t she? Well, isn’t she?”

There’s a long pause before Rocky says, “someone’s in here.” 

“Huh?” 

“Look.” Rocky points to the stove, where the teakettle is sitting out, its mouth pouring with steam. “And look at the dust, here and over there. It’s been disturbed.” 

There’s collective murmuring. “Ghosts,” someone says. Mordecai sighs and stands up, raising his hands. “Hello, Art.” He gives his old enemy the most frigid look he can manage; then he flicks his eyes towards Rocky, his tone sarcastic. “Darling.”

Those with guns, Calvin very much included, draw and cock them with a cascade of _clicks_. Mordecai stands perfectly still, completely surrounded, as Rocky stares at him, stunned. “Mordecai.” 

Mordecai asks very quietly, his face a blank canvas, “are you all right?” 

“I— I’m—” 

“Why are you dressed like that?”

Rocky looks down at his black suit and flower brooch, touching them gingerly as if he doesn’t know the answer. Someone whispers, “that’s Mordecai Heller;” someone else goes, “impossible.” Mordecai doesn’t look at them. “Rocky,” he says, “what’s going on?” 

 

*

 

Before going back down, Viktor pauses one last time in Mitzi’s room. It still smells like her, like perfume and cigarette smoke. He wonders if he’ll ever see her again. 

As he turns to leave, he feels a chill, and a whisper tickles his ear. He turns around. The window is open, a breeze moving the lacy curtains. He goes back and shuts it, then turns again to leave, but as he does so his blood runs cold, every hair on his back standing on end. There’s a silhouette in the doorway. He thinks, how had someone snuck up on him? He should have heard them coming, even if he couldn’t see them in the darkness. “Mordecai?” No answer. “Vhat you are doing, little one? I tell you vait downstairs.”

Rather than Mordecai’s curt, cold voice, Viktor hears a feminine sigh that makes him shiver. He looks behind him. The window is shut. He looks back at the threshold. The silhouette is gone. He goes and stands in the doorway, looking left, then right, but there’s no trace of anyone, and the only footprints in the carpet dust are his own. He closes his eye, rubs his face. He must be tired, or emotional, or old, or something, to be imagining things like this. 

“Viktor.”

He whirls around. He’s certain this time. That was Mitzi’s voice. Her silhouette is back, its curves accentuated by the way she’s leaning against the wall, so close to him there’s no plausible way she could have gotten there without his noticing, but somehow she had.

“Vhat you are doing?” Viktor growls, not bothering to hide his annoyance. She doesn’t say anything. His anger fades, just a little. “I thought you left.” 

“Oh, honey.” 

He tries to study her, but he blinks and she’s gone. He stares at the spot where she’d been, tries to think back, but he’s fairly certain he hadn’t drank anything illegal in the last few days, of questionable origin or otherwise. He supposes he really must be going crazy.

When he finally makes it back downstairs, he’s greeted by the unpleasant sight of about ten gangsters, those damned cousins included, pointing their weapons at Mordecai. They hear him enter, and, breaking out into shouts, half of them point at him, too. He calculates the risk and reward of starting a brawl, but there’s no way, if he was to do something like that, that they would make it out alive.

Rocky is running his mouth like a faucet, no surprise, trying to talk his fellows out of killing them. He seems to be outvoted. Someone points out that it will be daylight soon. Someone else suggests bringing them downstairs to kill them, so the police won’t hear the gunfire. Rocky is still trying to talk them out of it. The sight of his nervous smile, the red flower on his chest, fills Viktor with rage. “Vere is Mitzi?” Everyone looks at him. “Mitzi,” he repeats. “Vere is Mitzi?”

They all look at Rocky, and Rocky is silent, but he knows the answer, and they know he knows; there’s no reason why they know, but they do. In the end, however, it’s not Rocky who answers, but Calvin. 

“She’s dead.”

There’s a split second of silence before Viktor growls, an animalistic noise that sets everyone’s hair on end; then, as the growl increases to a roar, several things happen at exactly the same time. Viktor lunges at Rocky, the only weaponless Marigold in the room; Mordecai cries out for him to stop, but is ignored; Rocky takes a step back, but is met with a _thud_  by the wall; Calvin squeezes the trigger of his weapon and misses Viktor’s head by millimeters; and, lastly, Art steps in front of Rocky and fires.

After Viktor falls, the room is still for all of a second. Calvin feels a swift jab to the gut that doubles him over, then an elbow between the shoulderblades that sends him crashing into the floor; his weapon is twisted out of his hands with a strength he couldn’t have guessed Mordecai had. Art is the first to be shot, but Mordecai is indiscriminate. As soon as he’s done, he casts the weapon to the ground and runs to Viktor’s side. 

“Viktor!”

Before he can reach him, someone seizes his ankle, and he falls flat on his face with a thud; twisting around, he’s enraged to see Calvin, who climbs on top of him and strikes him in the face. “Killer!” he yells. “I never trusted you!” 

“Unhand me!”

“Monster!” 

“Get off!” 

“Demon! Psychopath!”  

“STOP!” 

Calvin is hit, out of nowhere, with a porcelain teacup, which bonks against his head before cracking in two against the ground. He blinks, looking up. “Ow.” 

Then his anger dissipates.

“What are you two doing?” Rocky is grinning like the Cheshire cat, and there’s blood on his face but it isn’t all his, and his suit is shredded with bullet holes, and he’s gripping the wound with one hand as gore drips through his fingers, but he’s smiling, smiling. “Can’t you hear the sirens? We have to get out of here, now!”

Calvin is sitting on Mordecai’s chest, knees pinning his arms, collar gripped in his hand, fist raised in preparation to strike; as if none of this is the case, the two of them exchange glances and seem to come to a mutual, nonverbal agreement.

Rocky grins even wider when they look at him and nod.


	27. Find Someone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.”  
> —Jonathan Swift

The police break into the cafe seconds after Calvin shuts the door. As they descend, supporting Rocky between them, they can hear the police shouting, their footsteps pounding above their heads. They know it’s only a matter of time before they call for backup, and only a slighty longer matter of time before they find the speakeasy.

“Ow.” Rocky winces as they lay him down on the bar. “Careful.” By this point, Mordecai has come down from his mania; gripping Rocky’s hand, he apologizes profusely. Rocky grins at him, touches his face, the way he used to do, and laughs in that good-natured way he has. “It’s okay,” he reassures him, “it’s okay.”

Calvin tries to administer care to the injury, but Rocky keeps pushing him away. “Dammit, I’m fine.” The dozenth time this happens, Calvin smacks his hand and, with one swift, decided tug, tears his shirt open, popping off all the buttons. The wound is grievous. He looks at him pointedly, but he just rolls his eyes. “I’m fine,” he insists, as if that’s not a lie.

“Hold still.” Calvin balls up his jacket to soak up the blood, but Rocky seizes his wrist. 

“Don’t.” 

“You’ll bleed to death.” 

“I’m going to check the back exit.” Mordecai disappears. Calvin tries again to stem the bleeding, but to his mixed annoyance and confusion, Rocky blocks him yet again. 

“Freckle, stop.” 

“But why?” 

“Just stop.” Rocky shifts, pain ghosting his face. “Listen. I need to tell you something.”

 

*

 

Mordecai makes it a few steps into the exit tunnel before his legs give way. On hands and knees, he squeezes his eye shut. He’d shot Rocky. It’d been an accident, but he’d shot him; he hadn’t meant to— or had he? 

The fur on his face is warm and sticky. He touches it with a trembling hand. Where Rocky had touched him, there was a streak of dark blood. He feels sick, but he forces himself to stand back up, to run.

The way to the garage is clear. They’re going to escape; Rocky’s going to make it; they’re going to be okay. 

 

*

 

_“I promise everything will be okay.”_

 

*

 

Calvin rifles through the bar for something he can use to stop the pain. Rocky is babbling. He’d been going on for a while, something about that woman, Betty, from so long ago, and something else about a missing Russian princess, and a diner in Springfield, and state birds and flowers, and all sorts of nonsense that makes Calvin more and more certain by the minute he’s going into delirium. Which is why he’s so frustrated he can’t find anything. Lackadaisy didn’t have a surplus of spirits to begin with, but it looked like Marigold just about polished off the rest of it. “Stop talking.” He brings him a shallow glass of moonshine. “Drink this.” 

“No, thank you.” 

“Rocky.” Calvin slams the glass down on the counter; before he’s even aware of it, tears are streaming down his cheeks, and he’s shaking his head. “You can’t die. Please don’t die.” 

“Freckle.” He feels a hand on his cheek, wiping away the tears. “I know you’re upset, and I know you think I must be out of my mind, but please listen to me. I’m trying to tell you something important.”

“No, please—” Please don’t die, Calvin wants to say, but he chokes on the words. Suddenly, his eyes widen and he gasps. Rocky had flicked him hard on the nose. 

“Calvin McMurray, you will listen to me now.” 

They stare at each other. Calvin has never seen Rocky try to look serious. Part of him wants to laugh, but he represses it, sniffling and wiping his eyes. “Okay,” he whispers. 

“I need you to find someone. Can you do that for me? You’ll have to leave St. Louis— quit the gang. You don’t mind, do you?”

Calvin laughs as he cries. “No.” 

Rocky chucks him under the chin, grinning. “Atta boy.”


	28. Animosity

"I want to drive."

"You're too young."

"I'm twenty!"

"I'm driving."

The only thing that prevents the disagreement from escalating into yet another full-blown fistfight is the sudden arrival of the first of the policemen. Then they shut up and get in the truck, and Calvin winds up in the passenger's side as Mordecai takes the wheel. They peel out of the garage with bullets ricocheting off the fender.

"Turn left." Holding his hat against the wind, Calvin leans out of the window to see behind them. If only he had his weapon, he could try to stave them off, but—

"I know how to get there."

Calvin scowls, answering before he can even think about it. "Oh, so that, you remember?" 

Mordecai is silent for a heartbeat. "I would advise you to refrain from sarcasm."

Calvin casts him a glance, resisting the urge to make a biting retort (calm down; breathe). Sirens echo, lights flash. They're being pursued. Mordecai flicks his eye toward the rearview mirror, which he has to drastically readjust in order to hope to be able to see; Viktor was huge, so, needless to say, his vantage point had been much different.

Viktor.

Mordecai doesn’t see the woman crossing the street, doesn’t hear Calvin yell for him to swerve, doesn’t snap out of it even when Calvin reaches across and yanks the wheel to the side. The next thing he knows the truck is wrecked against a telephone pole, his forehead is bleeding, and Calvin is standing outside of his door, reaching in to grab a fistful of his trench coat and drag him out. “Come on!” They leave the decimated vehicle behind, which the cops converge upon in under a minute, but by that time they’ve long since disappeared.

 

*

 

“Give them to me.” 

Calvin is practically on top of him, gripping his collar, reaching for his glasses, which Mordecai is attempting to hold out of his reach (“idiot, they’re mine!”) and failing. His arm comes down when Calvin jabs him in the gut (“payback,” he justifies it later). Mordecai tries to stop him. “Don’t you dare!”

The glasses, Calvin remembers, were broken almost two years ago, in Viktor’s apartment, right before... well, anyway. One of the lenses is spiderwebbed with cracks. Calvin pops it out and hands them back. “There. Now no one will look at you funny.” He flinches as Mordecai hits him, hard. 

“You broke them! Explain yourself.” 

“I’m trying to help you. You don’t need that side, anyway.” 

Mordecai holds it against him for a while, but Calvin knows he’s right. It’s far better this way— more discreet, and for two on-the-run convicts, discretion is key (even if they are tempted, purely out of dislike, to turn each other in on an almost daily basis). Mordecai knows this just as well, but that doesn’t stop him from uttering an insult of the sort intended to make one such as Calvin ashamed of his heritage. But Calvin lets it slide. All is fair, where the two of them are concerned, and every day they find creative new ways to take things too far. If it wasn’t for their shared interest in getting to Springfield, they would have parted ways a long time ago. 

 

*

 

Calvin has never been to Illinois. He soaks in everything there is to see with childlike wonder. Watching, Mordecai wonders if this is what he’s really like, beneath the gangster facade.

They buy a newspaper. Calvin flips through it as Mordecai reads over his shoulder. “There.” He points. “‘St. Louis speakeasy busted.’” There’s a long silence as they skim the article, which declares ‘eleven dead, two on lam, zero apprehended.’ Neither of them look at each other, but the chill they share is unmistakable. 

They go to the apartment, but the families Mordecai and Rocky once knew and loved are gone, replaced by total strangers. One of them gives Calvin a stack of letters. Calvin flips through them, recognizing his cousin’s handwriting; his eyes start to sting, and he turns tail without a word and goes back down to the street. Mordecai joins him a minute later. 

“I managed to uncover a few clues. I suggest we start looking in the—” 

“Why?” Calvin cuts him off, gazing out at the road. The letters, wrinkled and bound together with twine, are held loosely at his side. “Why did you do it?” Mordecai doesn’t answer. The silence between them is punctuated by the noise of cars, of people, of twittering birds. It’s a beautiful day. He closes his eyes. “Dammit.” 

Mordecai hesitates, then says carefully, “if you want to talk about it—” 

Calvin turns on him suddenly. “I’m... I’m her godfather, not you. When I find her, I’m not going to let you anywhere near her, even if it means I have to kill you. You killed her father.”

 

*

 

A custody battle. Calvin supposes that’s what it is, in a certain capacity, although for obvious reasons they don’t actually involve the court; rather, the fight is between the two of them. And it’s frustrating. Half of the things Calvin hates Mordecai for, the things he holds against him, Mordecai can’t even remember. If he brings up anything to do with the kidnap-and-drugs incident, Rocky’s stay in St. Mary’s, the incident where Mordecai stalked Calvin in his home, the time Mordecai and Rocky got into a bare-knuckle fistfight at Viktor’s place, the time Mordecai offered to kill Calvin to save Rocky’s life— Mordecai will either stare at him blankly or as if he’s crazy, or make some exasperated gesture, scowling, and point out, “I don’t remember any of that.” 

As the search winds on, they continue in this absurd manner, the animosity between them far past the point of tangible, but they never split up, not even for a moment. They only have each other left, and, whether or not they can admit it, they have the same person’s best interests in mind.

 

*

 

Their search takes them west. They make camp under the stars, something Mordecai hates more than tuberculosis, but he never speaks a word on the topic because he suspects Calvin would only get a kick out of his suffering. 

The fire crackles between them. They’re not arguing for once, although they have by no means come to any sort of agreement where the child is concerned; rather, for whatever reason, they seem to have spontaneously, simultaneously decided to give it a rest for one night. After a while, Mordecai breaks the silence. 

“Why does he call her Bluebird?” It isn’t her real name. Her name is Anastasia, and Mordecai prefers that, but Calvin doesn’t, and he always uses her nickname instead when referring to her. It’s been fucking Mordecai up a wall for the longest time, and now is the first chance he’s gotten to bring it up. Calvin shrugs, poking the fire with a stick. 

“State bird of Missouri.” 

“But it’s not a name.” 

“He calls me Freckle.” Calvin doesn’t use the proper tense, and it shuts them both up for a minute. The fire pops and sparks. Mordecai watches as Calvin gets up, tossing his stick to the ground, and moves away. He hesitates, then gets up and goes over to him. 

“Let me see your hand.” Calvin doesn’t want to, but Mordecai makes him. The scars aren’t pretty; he studies them for a long time, until Calvin scowls and asks him what he finds interesting. “By all accounts, you’re a very talented young man,” Mordecai murmurs, “but even so, it’s amazing that this is the only scar you have. Someone’s been looking out for you.” He lets him go. “That, or you’re very lucky.” 

“Luck runs in the family.” 

“You had better hope it doesn’t.”

Rather than be the one to break their feeble little truce, Calvin says, almost defiantly, “let me see your eye.” And Mordecai gives him this look that, although it means ‘no,’ is almost amusing enough to satisfy him anyway.

 

*

 

In the morning, as usual, Mordecai is the first to rise. He wakes Calvin up with a gentle shake and is met with a light slap to the nose that knocks his glasses askew (he breathes a long-suffering sigh), but it doesn’t matter; it’s time to move. They gather their few things and set out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters to go!


	29. Baby Steps

The kid is cute. Calvin holds her hands as she tries to walk on chubby legs, but she can’t stay up by herself. She keeps falling down, laughing. Her eyes are blue and bright and happy— they really do look just like his. 

Mordecai hasn’t spent much time with Bluebird yet. As soon as he walked through the door, the older children swarmed him, though they know full well how opposed he is to rowdiness; they don’t care. They’re overjoyed to see him. Their parents are less so, but they don’t get in the way, and, in the end (no harm, no foul, Mordecai supposes is their reasoning, the relief and guilt enough to bowl him over) they accept him back as if nothing had ever happened, as if it hadn’t been all his fault, as if he’d never left. 


	30. Turn of the Decade

The apartment is dark and quiet. Night sounds waft up from the street. The lock clicks and the door creaks as someone lets himself in. Mordecai’s ears twitch, but he doesn’t move. He listens to the footsteps carefully sidestep the sleeping bodies on every inch of the floor, go over to the drawer-turned-crib wherein slept the baby, and pick her up and carry her out onto the fire escape. He gets up without waking anyone and, as he nears them, hears a familiar voice [singing softly.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PmH2V3mrchE)  

He pauses just outside the window, listening, watching the baby wave its tiny hands in the air, half-awake; the practical, mothering side of him wishes Rocky had let it sleep, but he knows Rocky never gets to spend as much time with her as he would like. He’s head-over-heels for the ridiculous little thing. Mordecai can’t fathom why; probably just one of those silly, senseless things he does. Anyway, the child isn’t fussy, so he supposes there’s no harm; pushing his reservations aside, he leans against the windowsill, fairly certain, at this point, that Rocky knows he’s there, but if he does, he doesn’t turn around. There’s no way he’s anything other than bone tired after yet another full day of work, but he could have fooled anyone.  

After he puts the baby back to bed, the two of them stand for a little while, looking at her. Mordecai will never understand why her sort is referred to as ‘bundle of joy;’ often tearful, still so new to the world, she doesn’t inspire half as much joy in him as worry. What if she gets sick— if she won’t eat— if she won’t sleep— if she gets hurt? What if the children don’t mind her when playing? What if he drops her? Forgets to feed her? She makes him batty. Rocky doesn’t have to deal with that. He’s never home, always working. 

“How’re things around here?” he breaks the silence. “These kids must be driving you up a wall— I know they aren’t your favorite thing, but, y’know, they like you, really like you, like you’re their big brother or something. Isn’t that cute?” In the darkness, Mordecai can’t see him grinning, but he can hear it in his voice. “They think your eyepatch is nifty.” 

“Shhh.” The others are still sleeping. Rocky falls silent for a moment. 

“Really,” he whispers. “I need to know. Are you okay? If you want anything, anything at all, y’know, all you have to do is a—” 

“Shut up,” Mordecai says, not in a mean way. And Rocky smiles so brightly Mordecai can almost, almost see in the dark. 

“Sure,” he says, almost, almost too loud in the sleeping apartment. “Shutting up.”

 

*

 

Calvin shakes Mordecai awake. It takes him a second to remember where he is. When he puts his glasses on, he sees him fully dressed with child bundled in his arms, a look of gravity on his face. “Come on.” Mordecai asks him what’s happening. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“You’re taking her?”

“Yes.”

“But...” 

“You can come.” 

“I—?” 

“Come on.” Calvin pulls him up by the sleeve as his heart flutters with equal parts disbelief and joy. 

“I thought you wanted me to stay away from her.” 

“Rocky trusted you. So do I.”

 

*

 

It’s not as if they’re stealing her, at least, not per se. Even if they were, Mordecai doubted anyone would mind. The (former) Springfield tenants kept her, after Betty died, out of kindness more than obligation, but they have a lot of mouths to feed even without Anastasia— er, Bluebird— added on. And Calvin had already explained everything. They held a service. There was no body, but they built a memorial, covered it in wildflowers, and Calvin wrote a letter and tucked it in there somewhere. Then Bluebird set the whole thing on fire. Probably it had been a bad idea to leave candles lying out, with a child around (he and Mordecai had had another huge, blowout fight about it, somehow, despite being of the exact same opinion on the subject). 

 

*

 

Ivy meets them on the roadside, halfway to Canada. She throws her arms around Calvin’s neck, and he holds her, breathes her in, closing his eyes against welling tears. She’s so light, so happy; she tells him about her father, how hard-pressed he’d been to agree to this, so hard-pressed, in fact, he never really did agree, per _se_ , but she knows he won’t be angry forever. Not at his little princess. “And you really are a nice boy,” she tells Calvin. “He’ll see. And it’s not like it’s _our_ baby. It’s your cousin’s.” 

She doesn’t want to hold Bluebird at first (“ick, not the baby type”) but she reads Vogue to her in cafes and diners as they make their way back east. There will be jobs in New York; it’s going to be 1930, a new decade, in a matter of months, and the future is promising. With the four of them together, they have something greater than hope, something more surefire than a plan: they have a family.

 

*

 

October 20, 1929

Dear Rocky,

I lost your violin. I’m sorry. 

Bluebird is healthy. She was happy to see Mordecai. I think she recognized him. I thought he was going to cry, but he didn’t. Still, I think he was happy to see her, too.

We miss you. Ivy was mad at me at first. I couldn’t blame her. A lot of it was my fault. Some of it was Mordecai’s, and some of it was yours, but a lot of it was mine. She cried about Viktor. She’s pretending not to be upset anymore, but I know she is.

Do you know there’s talk that Prohibition might be repealed? 

I love you. I hope mom was wrong about you. I asked her about it on the telephone. She said she just might be, if we pray hard enough. Oh, and she wants to see Bluebird, get her baptized and all that. We’re gonna stop by on the way to New York. The city of dreams— remember? I wish you could be there. I’ll write to you all about it. I promise.

Until then,

Faithfully,

Freckle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks you for reading and for all the lovely, thoughtful comments!


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